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5 
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>• 


BOOKS  BY  JAMES  B.  CONNOLLY 

Published  by  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS.   Illustrated  net  Zt-50 

RUNNING  FREE.    Illustrated    .    .    .  net  1.50 

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OPEN  WATER.    Illustrated  ....  n«<  1.30 

THE  CRESTED  SEAS.    Illustrated    .  net  1.50 

THE  DEEP  SEA'S  TOLL.    Illustrated  net  1.30 

THE  SEINERS.    With  frontispiece     .  net  1.30 

OUT  OF  GLOUCESTER.    Illustrated  net  1.30 

JEB  HUTTON.    Illustrated    .    ...  net  1.20 

THE  TRAWLER net  .30 


THE   U-BOAT   HUNTERS 


Where  you-all  going  ?  .   .   .     Can't  you-all  sec  where  you're  going  ? 
Keep  off— keep  off."  [Page  117J 


THE 
U-BOAT  HUNTERS 


BY 
JAMES   B.  CONNOLLY 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1918 


314 


Copyright,  1906,  1918,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  June,  1918 
Copyright,  1916,  1917,  1918,  by  p.  f,  collier  &  son,  incorporatbd 


FOREWORD 

What  a  great  thing  if  we  could  do  away 
with  war ! 

But  men  are  not  cast  in  that  mould.  We 
shall  continue  to  have  wars;  and  some  day 
the  world  is  going  to  have  a  war  to  which  the 
present  will  serve  only  as  a  try-out. 

When  that  war  comes  our  country  will  prob- 
ably have  to  bear  the  burden  for  the  western 
hemisphere.  In  that  war  our  navy  will  be 
our  first  line  of  defense;  and  what  we  do  for 
our  navy  now  will  have  much  to  do  with  what 
our  navy  will  be  able  to  do  for  us  then. 

Our  navy  to-day  is  made  up  of  good  ships 
and  capable,  courageous,  hard-working  officers 
and  men.  There  are  some  fuddy-duddies  and 
poHticians  among  them,  but  most  of  them  are 
on  the  job  every  minute.  Their  highest  hope 
is  the  chance  to  serve  their  country.  The 
chapters  in  this  book  which  tell  of  their  U-boat 
hunting  only  prove  once  more  their  great 
qualities. 


vi  FOREWORD 

There  are  chapters  in  this  book  which  have 
nothing  to  do  with  U-boat  hunting,  but  have 
much  to  do  with  the  navy.  Such  are  the  two 
opening  chapters  and  the  three  closing  chap- 
ters. The  motive  of  four  of  those  chapters 
will  probably  be  obvious;  the  chapter  on  the 
workings  of  a  submarine  is  included  in  the 
hope  of  interesting  our  young  fellows  in  that 
type  of  craft. 

The  need  of  such  a  chapter.?  Take  this 
illustration  of  what  people  do  not  know  about 
submarines:  Three  years  ago  an  admiral  on 
the  other  side  was  called  into  conference  on 
the  U-boat  problem.  When  it  came  his  turn 
to  speak  he  said:  "Gentlemen,  it  is  child's  talk 
to  say  that  the  U-boats  will  ever  amount  to 
anything!  Disregard  them  utterly!"  Only 
three  years  ago  that  was,  and  that  naval 
officer  was  considered  for  commander-in-chief 
of  the  Grand  Fleet!  Three  years  ago,  and 
last  year  the  U-boats  sank  6,600,000  tons  of 
shipping ! 

Right  now  Germany  probably  contemplates, 
or  is  actually  constructing,  U-boats  with  armor 
and  guns  heavy  enough  to  engage  on  the  sur- 
face any  war  craft   up  to   the   battle-cruiser 


FOREWORD  vii 

class.  How  far  from  that  to  fighting  the 
heaviest  of  surface  craft — even  to  the  battle- 
ships ? 

In  the  event  of  invasion — we  might  as  well 
face  that;  refusing  to  think  about  it  certainly 
will  not  eliminate  the  possibility, — in  the 
event  of  invasion  by  a  powerful  foe  our  first 
line  of  defense  will  be  our  navy.  The  navy 
will  always  be  our  first  line  of  defense;  and  so 
the  need  to-day  of  interesting  in  our  navy 
young  men, — progressive  young  men,  who  will 
learn  from  the  past  but  prefer  to  live  in  the 
future. 

J.  B.  C. 


CONTENTS 

NAVY  SHIPS 

PAGE 
I 

NAVY  MEN 

12 

SEEING  THEM  ACROSS 

24 

THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR 

37 

CROSSING  THE  CHANNEL 

58 

THE  CENSORS 

77 

ONE  THEY  DIDNT  GET 

92 

THE  DOCTOR  TAKES  CHARGE 

108 

THE  343  STAYS  UP 

127 

THE  CARGO  BOATS 

142 

FLOTILLA  HUMOR— AT  SEA 

157 

FLOTILLA  HUMOR— ASHORE 

172 

X  CONTENTS 

PACE 

THE     UNQUENCHABLE     DESTROYER 

BOYS  1 86 

THE  MARINES  HAVE  LANDED 204 

THE  NAVY  AS  A  CAREER  222 

THE  SEA  BABIES  239 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

**  Where  you-all  going?  .  .  .    Can't  you-all  see  where 

you're  going?     Keep  ofF — keep  oflf "    .    Frontispiece 

FACING   PAGE 

She  shoved  out  into  the  stream  and  kicked  her  way 
down  the  harbor,  and  as  she  did  so  .  .  .  every- 
body seemed  to  know 26 

Our  thirty-knot  clip  was  eating  up  the  road.    We 

were  getting  near  the  spot 98 

In  the  engine-room  of  a  submarine 242 


NAVY  SHIPS 

MORE  than  one-third  of  our  naval  force 
was  being  reviewed  by  the  President. 
A  most  impressive  assembly  of  men- 
o'-war  it  was,  in  tonnage  and  weight  of  metal 
the  greatest  ever  floated  by  the  waters  of  the 
western  hemisphere. 

The  last  of  the  fleet  had  arrived  on  the  night 
before.  From  the  bluff's  along  the  shore  they 
might  have  been  seen  approaching  with  a  mys- 
terious play  of  lights  across  the  shadowy  waters. 
In  the  morning  they  were  all  there.  Hardly  a 
type  was  lacking — the  last  1 6,000-ton  double- 
turreted  battleship,  the  protected  and  heavy- 
armored  cruisers,  monitors,  despatch-boats,  gun- 
boats, destroyers,  attendant  transport,  and  sup- 
ply ships.  Fifty  ships,  1,200  guns,  16,000  men: 
all  were  there,  even  to  the  fascinating  little  sub- 
marines with  their  round  black  backs  just  show- 
ing above  the  water. 

It  was  that  chromatic  sort  of  a  morning 
when  the  canvas  of  the  sailing-boats  stands 
out  startlingly  white  against  the  drizzly  sky  and 


2  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

the  smoke  from  the  stacks  of  the  steamers 
takes  on  an  accented  coal-black,  and,  drooping, 
trails  low  in  a  murky  wake.  Rather  a  dull 
setting  at  this  early  hour;  but  not  sufficiently 
dull  to  check  the  vivacity  of  the  actors  in  the 
scene. 

The  President  comes  up  the  side  of  the 
Mayflower  and,  arrived  at  the  head  of  the 
gangway,  stands  rigid  as  any  stanchion  to  at- 
tention while  his  colors  are  shot  to  the  truck 
and  the  scarlet-coated  band  plays  the  national 
hymn.  Then,  ascending  to  the  bridge,  he 
takes  station  by  the  starboard  rail  with  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  at  his  shoulder.  The 
clouds  roll  away,  the  sun  comes  out,  and  all  is 
as  it  should  be  while  he  prepares  to  review  the 
fleet,  which  thereafter  responds  aboundingly 
to  every  burst  of  his  own  inexhaustible  en- 
thusiasm. 

And  this  fleet,  which  is  lying  to  anchor  in 
three  Hnes  of  four  miles  or  so  each  in  length, 
with  a  respectful  margin  of  clear  water  all 
about,  is,  viewed  merely  as  a  marine  pageant, 
magnificent;  as  a  display  of  potential  fighting 
power,  most  convincing.  No  man  might  look 
on  it  and  his  sensibilities — admiration,  patri- 


NAVY  SHIPS  3 

otism,  respect,  whatever  they  might  be — re- 
main unstirred.  To  witness  it  is  to  pass  in 
mental  review  the  great  fleets  of  other  days 
and  inevitably  to  draw  conclusions.  Beside 
this  armament  the  ill-destined  Armada,  Von 
Tromp's  stubborn  squadrons.  Nelson's  walls  of 
oak,  or  Farragut's  steam  and  sail  would  dis- 
solve like  the  glucose  squadrons  that  boys  buy 
at  Christmas  time.  Even  Dewey's  workman- 
like batteries  (this  to  mark  the  onward  rush  of 
naval  science)  would  be  rated  obsolete  beside 
the  latest  of  these ! 

It  was  first  those  impressive  battleships; 
and  bearing  down  on  them  one  better  saw 
what  terrible  war-engines  they  are.  Big  guns 
pointing  forward,  big  guns  pointing  astern, 
long-reaching  guns  abeam,  and  little  business- 
looking  machine-guns  in  the  tops — their  mere 
appearance  suggests  their  ponderous  might. 
A  single  broadside  from  any  of  these,  properly 
placed,  and  there  would  be  an  end  to  the  most 
renowned  flag-ships  of  wooden-fleet  days.  And 
that  this  frightful  power  need  never  wait  on 
wind  or  tide,  nor  be  hindered  in  execution  by 
any  weather  much  short  of  a  hurricane,  is  as- 
sured when  we  note  that  to-day,  while  the 


4  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

largest  of  the  excursion  steamers  are  heaving 
to  the  whitecaps,  these  are  lying  as  immova- 
ble almost  as  sea-walls. 

It  is,  first,  the  flag-ship  which  thunders 
out  her  greeting — one,  two,  three — twenty-one 
smoke-wreathed  guns — while  her  sailormen, 
arm  to  shoulder,  mark  in  unwavering  blue  the 
lines  of  deck  and  superstructure.  Meantime  the 
officers  on  the  bridge,  admiral  in  the  foreground, 
are  standing  in  salute;  and  in  the  intervals  of 
gun-fire  there  are  crashing  out  over  the  waters 
again  the  strains  of  the  "Star  Spangled  Banner." 
And  the  flag-ship  left  astern,  the  guns  of  the 
next  in  line  boom  out,  and  on  her  also  the  band 
plays  and  men  and  officers  stand  to  attention; 
and  so  the  next,  and  next.  And,  the  battle- 
ships passed,  come  the  armored  cruisers,  riding 
the  waters  almost  as  ponderously  as  the  bat- 
tleships and  hardly  less  powerful,  but  much 
faster  on  the  trail;  and  they  may  run  or  fight 
as  they  please.  After  examining  them,  long 
and  swift-looking,  with  no  more  space  between 
decks  than  is  needed  for  machinery,  stores, 
armament,  and  lung-play  for  live  men,  the  in- 
evitable reflection  recurs  that  the  advance  of 
mechanical  power  must  color  our  dreams  of  ro- 


NAVY  SHIPS  5 

mance  in  future.  Surely  the  old  ways  are  gone. 
Imagine  one  of  the  old  three-deckers  aiming  to 
work  to  windward  of  one  of  these  in  a  gale, 
and  if  by  any  special  dispensation  of  Provi- 
dence she  was  allowed  to  win  the  weather 
berth,  imagine  her  trying,  while  she  rolled 
down  to  her  middle  deck,  to  damage  one  of 
these  belted  brutes,  who  meantime  would  be 
leisurely  picking  out  the  particular  plank  by 
which  she  intended  to  introduce  into  her 
enemy's  vitals  a  weight  of  explosive  metal 
sufficient  in  all  truth  to  blow  her  out  of  water. 
After  the  cruisers  passed  the  craft  of  com- 
paratively small  tonnage  and  power  follow — 
the  gunboats,  transports,  and  supply  ships; 
and,  almost  forgotten,  the  monitors,  riding  un- 
disturbedly, Hke  squat  little  forts  afloat,  with 
freeboard  so  low  that  with  a  slightly  undulat- 
ing sea  a  turtle  could  swim  aboard.  And  after 
them  the  destroyers,  which  look  their  name. 
Most  wicked  inventions;  no  shining  brasswork 
nor  holy-stoned  quarter,  no  decorative  and 
convenient  companionway  down  the  side — no 
anything  that  doesn't  make  for  results.  Ugly, 
wicked-looking,  with  hooded  ports  from  under 
which  peer  the  muzzles  of  long-barrelled  weap- 


6  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

ons  that  look  as  if  they  were  designed  for  the 
single  business  of  boring,  and  boring  quickly, 
holes  in  steel  plate. 

So  the  Mayflower  steams  down  the  four  long 
Hues  in  review;  and  always  the  batteries  and 
bands  in  action,  the  immortal  hymn  echoing 
out  like  rolling  thunder  between  the  flame-lit 
broadsides.  From  shore  to  shore  the  cannon 
detonate  and  our  fighting  blood  is  stirred.  On 
the  pleasure  craft  skirting  the  line  of  pickets 
like  vaguely  outlined  picture  boats  in  the  dim, 
perspective  haze,  the  people  seem  also  to  be 
stirred.  We  dream  of  the  glory  of  battle;  but 
better  than  that,  the  hymn  which  has  stirred 
men  to  some  fine  deeds  in  the  past,  and  shall 
to  just  as  brave  in  the  future,  mounts  like  a 
surging  tide  to  our  hearts: 

"Oh,  say,  can  you  see?" 

it  is  asking.  And  we  can  see — no  need  of  the 
glass — ahead,  astern,  abeam,  aloft,  some  thou- 
sands of  them  streaming  in  the  fresh  west  wind, 
and  within  signal  distance  of  their  beautiful 
waving  folds  a  multitude  of  men  and  women 
in  whom  the  sense  of  patriotism  must  have  be- 


NAVY  SHIPS  7 

come  immeasurably  deepened  for  being  within 
call  this  day. 

The  vibration  of  brass  and  pipe,  the  music 
and  the  saluting,  one  ship  and  the  next,  and 
never  the  welcome  of  one  died  out  before  the 
tumult  of  the  next  began.  It  was  like  the 
ceaseless  roar  of  the  ever-rolling  ocean,  with 
never  an  instant  when  the  ear-drum  did  not 
vibrate  to  the  salute  of  cannon,  the  blood  tingle 
to  the  call  of  the  nation's  hymn.  One  felt 
faith  in  ships  and  crews  after  it;  and  later, 
when  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower  the  ad- 
mirals and  captains  gathered,  to  meet  them  and 
to  listen  was  to  feel  anew  the  assurance  that 
this  navy  will  be  ready  when  the  hour  comes 
to  do  whatever  may  be  deemed  right  and  well 
by  the  people. 

The  admirals  and  the  attaches  having  de- 
parted and  dinner  become  a  thing  of  the  past, 
it  was  time  to  review  the  electric-light  display. 

We  were  almost  abreast  of  the  first  in  line, 
and  she  was  like  a  ship  from  fairyland.  Along 
her  run  the  bulbed  lights  extended,  and  thence 
to  her  turrets,  and,  higher  up,  followed  the  out- 
line of  stacks  and  tops  and  masts,  with  floating 


8  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

strings  of  them  suspended  here  and  there  be- 
tween. Most  striking  of  all,  her  name  in  gi- 
gantic, flaming  letters  faced  forward  from  her 
bridge.  Now  one  ship  decked  in  a  multiplicity 
of  jewels  on  this  clear  calm  night  would  have 
been  a  beautiful  sight — but  where  there  were 
forty-odd  of  them ! 

It  was  a  sailor  of  the  fleet,  lurking  in  the 
shifting  shadows  of  the  bridge,  that  he  might 
enjoy  his  surreptitious  cigarette  and  not  suff'er 
disratement  therefor,  who  reviewed  the  illu- 
minations most  illuminingly.  **Man,  but  they 
do  blaze  out,  don't  they  }  They  make  me  think 
of  the  post-cards  we  used  to  buy  in  foreign 
ports.  You  held  them  up  before  the  light  and 
they  came  out  shining  like  a  Christmas-tree. 
But  no  ships  of  cards  these — and  that's  the 
wonderful  thing,  too.  Seeing  them  to-day, 
with  their  batteries  in  view,  'twas  enough  to 
put  the  fear  o'  God  in  a  man's  heart,  and  now 
look  at  them — like  a  child's  dream  of  heaven 
— that  is,  if  we  don't  sheer  too  close  and  see 
that  the  guns  are  still  there.  And,  look  now, 
the  tricks  they're  at !" 

Outlined  in  incandescents,  the  semaphores 
of  a  dozen  ships  were  being  worked  most  in- 


NAVY  SHIPS  9 

dustriously.  "Jerk  up  and  down  like  the  legs 
and  arms  of  the  mechanical  dolls  at  the  theatre, 
don't  they  ?  But  these  here  could  be  dancing 
for  something  more  than  the  people's  amuse- 
ment if  'twas  necessary.  And  what  are  they 
saying  ?  Oh,  most  likely  it's  *The  compliments 
of  the  admiral,  and  will  you  come  aboard  the 
flag-ship  and  try  a  taste  of  punch  ? '  And 
'With  pleasure,'  that  other  one  is  saying. 
And  they'll  be  lowering  away  the  launch  and 
no  doubt  be  having  a  pleasant  chat  presently. 
And  they  could  just  as  easily  be  saying  (if 
'twas  the  right  time),  'Pipe  to  quarters  and 
load  with  shell' — ^just  as  easy;  and  they  could 
revolve  the  near  turret  of  that  one,  and  ten 
seconds  after  they  cut  loose  you  and  me,  if  we 
weren't  already  killed  by  rush  of  air,  would  be 
brushing  the  salt  water  from  our  eyes  and  claw- 
ing around  for  a  stray  piece  of  wreckage  to 
hang  on  to.  Just  as  easy — but  look  at  'em 
now  again !" 

The  search-lights  were  paralleling  and  in- 
tersecting, now  revealing  the  perpendicular 
depths  beside  the  vessel,  and  now  flooding  the 
sky.  Twenty  of  them,  simultaneously  flash- 
ing, were  sweeping  the  surface  of  the  Sound, 


10  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

one  instant  outlining  the  arbored  Long  Island 
shore,  the  next  betraying  the  beaches  of  Con- 
necticut. One,  beaming  westerly,  disclosed  a 
loaded  excursion  steamer  half-way  to  Hell 
Gate,  and,  a  moment  later,  turning  a  hand- 
spring, picked  up  in  its  diverging  path  the  Fall 
River  steamer  miles  away  to  the  eastward. 

"The  torpedo-boats'd  have  the  devil's  own 
time  trying  to  lay  aboard  to-night,  wouldn't 
they  ?  And  yet  if  'twas  cloudy  'twould  be  the 
submarines!  Did  you  see  them  to-day? 
Weren't  they  cute — like  little  whale  pups  set- 
ting on  the  water — yes.  They  say  they've 
got  them  where  they  turn  somersaults  now. 
Great,  yes — but  terrible,  too,  when  you  think 
they're  liable  to  come  your  way  some  fine  day. 
Imagine  yourself,  all  at  once,  some  night  when 
you  ought  to  be  sound  asleep  in  your  ham- 
mock, finding  yourself,  afore  you're  yet  fair 
awake,  so  high  in  the  sky  that  you  can  almost 
reach  out  and  take  hold  of  the  handle  of  the 
Dipper!  And  when  you  come  down  and  get 
the  official  report,  learning  that  one  of  those 
cute  little  playthings  had  been  making  a  sub- 
aqueous call. 

"It's   ninety-odd   years  since  the  American 


NAVY  SHIPS  II 

navy  proved  it  could  do  a  good  job;  for,  of 
course,  none  of  us  count  Spain,  who  wasn't 
ready  to  begin  with,  and  wasn't  our  size,  any- 
way. And  yet,  we  mightn't  make  out  so  bad 
'gainst  a  bigger  enemy  at  that.  Our  fellows 
can  shoot,  that's  sure.  There's  a  gun  crew  in 
this  ship  we're  breasting  now,  and  I  saw  them 
awhile  ago  put  eight  12-inch  shot  in  succession 
through  that  regulation  floating  target  we  use, 
and  it  was  as  far  away  as  the  farther  end  of 
that  Hne  of  cruisers  there,  and  the  target  was 
bobbing  up  and  down,  and  we  steaming  by  at 
10  knots  an  hour.  Not  too  bad — hah .?  And 
a  hundred  crews  like  'em  in  the  navy.  That's 
for  the  shooting." 

He  flicked  the  end  of  another  fleeting  ciga- 
rette over  the  rail.  "Yes,  the  American  navy 
has  fought  pretty  well,  and  this  navy,  no  fear, 
will  fight  too.  There's  more  different  kinds  of 
people  in  it  than  ever  before,  they  say — though 
as  to  that  I  guess  there  were  always  more  kinds 
of  people  in  the  navy  than  the  historians  ever 
gave  credit  for.  Now  it's  all  kinds  like  the 
nation  itself,  I  suppose.  And  that  ought  to 
make  for  good  fighting,  don't  you  think  ? 


NAVY  MEN 

THE  foregoing  occasion  was  the  first 
of  several  naval  spectacles  staged  by 
Theodore  Roosevelt  during  his  presi- 
dency to  show  the  public  that  we  had  a  grow- 
ing navy,  and  not  too  small  a  navy,  and  a  navy 
that,  ship  for  ship,  need  ask  for  no  odds  in  its 
equipment  at  least. 

More  than  any  President  we  ever  had  did 
Theodore  Roosevelt  work  for  a  big  navy.  To 
no  President  before  him  in  our  country  did 
the  prospect  of  a  great  European  war  loom  so 
near;  a  war  which  meant  our  participation, 
not  so  much  through  any  will  of  our  people  as 
by  the  pressure  of  happenings  from  the  other 
side. 

Hence,  the  need  of  the  country  for  as  large 
a  navy  as  we  could  get  together.  With  an  eye 
for  this  future  need  President  Roosevelt  asked 
for  4  battleships  a  year.  There  were  men 
in  Congress  who  believed  that  to  talk  of  war 
was  foolish;  there  would  be  no  more  war;  so, 
instead  of  4,  Congress  gave  him  2,  and   the 

12 


NAVY  MEN  13 

famous  "big  stick"  had  to  come  into  play  be- 
fore they  gave  him  even  the  two. 

During  these  years  I  had  the  privilege  from 
President  Roosevelt  of  cruising  on  United  States 
war-ships — gunboats,  destroyers,  cruisers,  bat- 
tleships (later,  through  the  good  offices  of  Secre- 
tary Daniels,  I  became  acquainted  with  sub- 
marines and  navy  airplanes). 

The  war-ships  were  an  interesting  study,  and 
the  life  aboard  a  war-ship  then  was  even  more 
interesting,  for  after  all,  men,  not  materials, 
were  the  chief  thing.  Almost  any  fairly  well- 
trained  bunch  of  mechanics  will  turn  out  a 
pretty  good  machine  to  order.  But  there  is  no 
turning  out  good  men  to  order;  only  good- 
living  generations  can  do  that. 

If  it  was  a  matter  of  machinery  alone,  then 
the  Prussian  idea  would  have  this  war  already 
won.  But  that  alone  cannot  prevail,  can  never 
prevail  for  the  long  run.  It  is  the  spirit  which 
must  win. 

The  personnel  of  the  navy,  officers  and  men, 
seemed  always  so  much  more  interesting  to 
me,  that  for  one  hour  I  spent  in  looking  over 
ship  equipment,  I  probably  spent  forty  in  ob- 
serving the  men;   and  when  you  are  locked  up 


14  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

in  ships  for  weeks  or  months  with  a  lot  of  men 
you  must,  where  your  heart  and  mind  are  not 
closed,  come  away  in  time  with  some  sort  of 
knowledge  of  them. 

And  what  sort  are  they  ? 

Well,  they  are  nearly  all  young — average  age 
about  twenty-one  years;  and  they  come  from 
anywhere  and  everywhere — from  the  farms,  the 
prairies,  the  corners  of  city  streets;  and  they 
have  been  many  things — farm-hands,  carpen- 
ters, mechanics,  barbers,  trolley-car  men,  clerks, 
street  loafers,  college  boys.  Some  are  terribly 
sophisticated  in  worldly  ways  and  some  so 
green,  of  course,  that  the  wags  have  frequent 
chances  to  keep  their  wits  on  edge.  Some  have 
come  with  the  plain  notion  that  if  a  fellow  has 
got  to  fight,  why  then  the  navy  offers  the  most 
comfortable  outlook  for  a  fellow — during  this 
war  it  especially  offers  it — dry  hammock  every 
night,  no  mud,  no  cooties,  and  three  hot  meals 
at  regular  intervals — but  many  are  there  with 
the  bright  hope  of  some  day  pointing  a  14-inch 
gun  and  sending  a  relay  of  i,4CX)-pound  shells 
where  they  will  blow  something  foreign  and 
opposing  high  as  the  flying  clouds. 

Blowing  up  ships  and  people  may  have  once 


NAVY  MEN  IS 

seemed  a  terrible  idea,  but  a  few  weeks  in  the 
community  of  a  war-ship  with  its  matter-of- 
fact,  professional  manner  of  discussing  such 
subjects  soon  brings  them  around  to  common, 
seagoing  notions  of  the  matter. 

Four  years  ago  at  Vera  Cruz  our  modern 
navy  had  its  first  taste  of  war.  It  was  only  a 
light  touch  of  war,  and  there  was  no  doubt  of 
the  outcome;  but  in  Httle  affairs  men  may  be 
tried  out,  too.  Through  somebody's  blunder, 
for  which  somebody  should  have  been  jacked-up, 
our  bluejackets  were  sent  up  in  solid  sections 
to  occupy  a  large  open  area  on  the  Vera  Cruz 
water-front.  Standing  there  in  solid  columns, 
not  knowing  just  what  was  going  to  happen, 
but  feeling  to  a  certainty  that  something  stir- 
ring was  going  to  happen,  and  to  happen  soon, 
they  stood  there  grinning  widely  and  waiting 
for  the  ball  to  open.  It  may  have  been  their 
childish  innocence,  it  may  have  been  their 
untutored  ignorance,  but  when  that  sheeted 
rifle  fire  first  burst  from  the  roof  of  the  Naval 
College,  and  a  solid  squad  or  two  of  our  lads 
went  down,  and  following  that  the  snipers 
began  to  get  them  in  ones  and  twos  and  threes 
— ^when  that  happened  there  was  no  distressing 


i6  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

confusion  in  their  ranks.  When,  later,  it  be- 
came necessary  for  the  Prairie  and  Chester  to 
fire  just  over  their  heads  to  batter  the  walls  of 
that  same  War  College,  it  made  no  difference. 
The  ships'  gunnery  was  rapid  and  excellent — 
they  knew  it  would  be — and  when  the  shells 
went  whistling  through  the  walls  of  the  second 
story,  the  marines  and  bluejackets  stood  under 
the  first  story  and  let  them  whistle.  Plaster 
and  bricks  from  the  shaken  walls  came  tum- 
bling down  upon  them.  They  ducked  beneath 
the  falling  mortar,  some  of  them,  but  they  all 
took  their  shells  standing. 

They  are  not  the  sailors  of  classic  tradition, 
these  battleship  lads  of  the  twentieth  century. 
Every  man  to  the  age  he  lives  in — it  must  be 
so.  The  old  phrase,  *' Drunk  as  a  sailor," 
meant,  in  most  men's  minds,  drunk  as  a  man- 
o'-war's  man.  I  was  born  and  brought  up  in 
a  great  seaport — Boston — and  my  earliest 
memories  are  of  loafing  days  along  the  harbor 
front  and  the  husky-voiced,  roaring  fellows 
coming  ashore  in  the  pulling  boats  from  the 
men-o'-war;  fine,  rolling-gaited  fellows,  in 
from  long  cruises  and  flamingly  eager  to  make 
the  most  of  their  short  liberty.     Great-hearted 


NAVY  MEN  17 

men,  who  gave  truth  to  the  phrase — "and 
spending  his  money  like  a  drunken  sailor" — 
and  knowing,  usually,  but  two  inescapable 
obligations — to  do  his  duty  aboard  ship  and 
to  stand  by  a  shipmate  in  trouble  ashore. 
Almost  any  of  the  old-time  policemen  of  the 
large  seaports  can  tell  you  many  fine  tales  of 
the  riotous  hours  along  the  water-front  in  the 
old  days. 

Such  is  the  passing  tradition.  The  present 
lad  of  the  navy  is  creating  a  new  one.  For  one 
thing,  he  no  longer  gets  drunk — that  is,  he  does 
not  get  drunk  by  divisions.     To  illustrate: 

During  that  greatest  steaming  stunt  in  all 
maritime  history — the  cruise  of  our  sixteen 
battleships  with  their  auxiliaries  around  the 
world — all  naval  records  were  broken  in  the 
number  of  enlisted  men  allowed  ashore.  Every 
day  in  large  foreign  ports  saw  4,000  of  our 
bluejackets  and  marines  allowed  shore  liberty. 
Now  consider  the  case  of  the  first  foreign  port 
where  liberty  was  granted,  Rio  de  Janeiro  in 
South  America;  and  what  happened  in  Rio 
was  what  happened  in  other  ports. 

It  was  five  weeks  or  more  since  leaving  home, 
and  during  that  five  weeks  they  had  been  for 


i8  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

twelve  days  steaming  along  one  of  the  hottest 
coasts  (Brazil)  in  all  the  world — the  tropics — 
and  it  was  summer-time  once  they  were  south 
of  the  Hne;  and  in  all  that  time  no  chance  for 
an  enlisted  man  to  get  a  drink  of  any  kind  of 
liquor — no  beer  or  light  wine  even — no  matter 
what  the  intensity  of  the  thirst  which  may  have 
possessed  him. 

Now  he  is  suddenly  thrown  ashore  with  his 
pockets  full  of  money.  He  has  only  to  go  to 
the  paymaster  and  draw  pretty  much  all  he 
pleases.  By  actual  figures  the  men  of  the 
battle  fleet — about  13,000 — drew  ^200,000  in 
gold  to  spend  ashore  in  Rio — about  $15  a  man. 
For  five  or  six  weeks  not  a  drop  to  drink,  and 
all  at  once  4,000  of  them  thrown  daily  to  roam 
into  the  midst  of  500  grog  shops  with  their 
pockets  full  of  money,  and  no  restrictions  placed 
upon  them,  except  one:  they  must  be  back  to 
their  ship  that  same  night ! 

I  was  a  passenger  with  that  battle  fleet,  and 
night  after  night  I  stood  on  the  great  stone 
quay  in  Rio  and  watched  them  returning  to 
their  ships.  On  no  night  did  I  see  more  than 
forty  or  fifty  who  might  be  said  to  be  "soused"; 
on  no  night  did  I  see  more  than  a  dozen  or 


NAVY  MEN  19 

fifteen  who  had  to  be  thrown  into  the  accom- 
modation barge  with  the  "dead  ones,"  the  help- 
less ones  who  were  so  far  gone  that  they  had 
to  be  carried  up  the  sides  of  their  ships  from 
the  barge  which  made  the  last  rounds  of  the 
fleet. 

Now  I  would  like  to  make  an  observation; 
gratuitous,  but  perhaps  of  human  interest 
and  pertinent  right  here:  I  think  if  we  took 
4,000  lawyers  or  doctors  or  authors  or  car- 
drivers  or  clerks — 4,000  of  almost  any  sort  from 
civil  life — and  locked  them  up  so  that  for  five 
or  six  weeks  in  a  warm  or  a  cold  climate  they 
could  not  get  a  drink  of  any  kind  of  liquor,  no 
matter  how  great  their  fancied  or  real  need;  and 
at  the  end  of  that  five  or  six  weeks  took  the 
whole  4,000  of  them,  with  their  pockets  full  of 
money,  and  suddenly  threw  them  into  the  mid- 
dle of  all  the  grog-shops  of  a  great  city — I  do 
think  that  more  than  forty — that  is,  one  per 
cent  of  them — would  be  found  "soused" — that 
is,  if  we  had  means  of  locating  them  all  at  the 
end  of  the  day. 

The  heroic  sailor  of  tradition  has  passed — 
a  sailor  of  another  kind,  but  just  as  efiicient 
and  just  as  heroic  in  another  way — the  way  of 


20  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

his  day — is  rapidly  creating  another  tradition. 
The  lad  who  in  the  lusty  days  of  his  youth  can 
thus  hold  himself  in  check  is  a  pretty  good 
product  of  American  development.  He  pretty 
generally  passes  up  the  grog-shop,  but  he  visits 
the  art  galleries,  the  museums,  the  cathedrals, 
the  K.  of  C.'s,  and  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s  ashore,  takes 
books  from  the  library  on  shipboard,  buys  post- 
cards and  mails  them  home  to  let  his  friends 
know  of  the  great  things  in  the  world.  On 
that  world  cruise  referred  to  the  men  cleaned 
Rio  de  Janeiro  out  of  250,000  post-cards. 

I  doubt  if  many  of  them,  on  the  first  try, 
could  lay  out  on  a  topsail-yard  in  a  gale  of  wind 
without  immediately  falling  overboard;  but 
they  don't  have  to  lay  out  on  topsail-yards 
nowadays.  They  do  have  to  shoot,  however; 
and  they  can  shoot.  Lay  a  gun's  crew  of  them 
behind  a  big  turret-gun  and  watch  them  make 
lacework  of  a  target  at  11,000  yards. 

The  main  question  is.  Have  we  the  spirit 
to-day.?  As  to  that,  no  man  having  yet  de- 
vised any  apparatus  wherewith  to  measure 
energy  of  soul  and  mind,  it  is  difficult  to  prove 
to  whoever  will  not  believe,  or  does  not  in  him- 


NAVY  MEN  21 

self  possess  the  germ,  the  existence  of  this 
thing  that  may  not  be  measured  by  foot-rule 
or  bushel  basket.  The  belching  of  powder  and 
the  roll  of  drumhead  do  not  prove  it.  We  can 
always  hire  men  to  do  that,  and  to  do  it  well. 
And  yet,  to  be  present  at  the  review  described 
in  the  preceding  chapter  was  to  experience  the 
thrill  that  may  not  be  measured,  to  note  how 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  occasion  seemed  to  be 
animating  the  crews,  to  share  in  the  feeling  of 
pride  which  mantled  all  cheeks,  and,  ship  after 
ship  slipping  past,  to  feel  that  pride  of  fleet 
intensify,  until  we  echoed  the  cry  of  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, whose  enthusiasm  for  all  that 
is  good  for  the  nation  is  unquenchable.  As  the 
President  said,  it  was  a  glorious  day. 

No  doubt  of  it.  Men  had  met  and  there 
was  kinship  in  the  meeting.  From  that  au- 
spicious opening  in  the  morning  when  the 
clouds  seemed  to  dissolve  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  allowing  a  fresh-washed  sky  to  enter 
into  the  color  scheme  of  the  beautiful  picture 
— blue  dome,  chalk-white  and  sea-green  war- 
ships, green  and  blue  and  white-edged  Httle 
seas — until  that  last  moment  at  night  when 
the  last  call  on  the  last  ship  was  blown  and  to 


22  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

its  lingering  cadence  the  last  unwinking  in- 
candescent of  the  fairy-like  illumination  was 
switched  off,  leaving  the  hushed  and  darkened 
fleet  riding  to  only  the  necessary  anchor  lights 
on  the  motionless,  moon-lit  sound — who  wit- 
nessed it  all  might  not  doubt  the  existence  of 
that  spirit  which  in  conflict  makes  for  more 
than  thickness  of  armor  or  weight  of  shell. 

We  went  to  war;  and  it  was  with  an  immense 
confidence  in  what  they  would  do  that  I  heard 
of  the  sailing  of  our  first  group  of  destroyers 
for  the  business  of  convoying  ships  and  hunting 
U-boats  on  the  other  side.  Ships  were  up  to 
date  and  officers  and  men  knew  their  business; 
and  there  was  something  more  than  knowing 
their  business. 

Other  groups  of  destroyers  followed  that 
first  one,  and  a  lot  of  us  were  wondering  how 
they  were  making  out.  They  had  sailed  out 
into  the  Atlantic — that  we  knew;  but  what 
were  they  doing  ?  We  who  knew  them  be- 
lieved they  were  doing  well.     But  how  well .? 

I  thought  it  worth  while  finding  out.  I 
went  to  Washington  and  from  Secretary  Dan- 
iels  and   Chief  Censor  George  Creel  secured 


NAVY  MEN  23 

necessary  credentials,  and  through  the  War 
Department  the  word  which  would  put  me 
aboard  a  troop-ship. 

It  is  only  justice  to  Secretary  Daniels  to  say 
that  he  granted  me  all  aid  even  though  I  told 
him  I  would  probably  work  for  Collier's  on  the 
trip — for  Collier's  which  had  been  pounding  him 
editorially. 

What  I  learned  of  this  game  of  escorting  ships 
and  hunting  U-boats  is  in  the  chapters  which 
follow. 


SEEING  THEM  ACROSS 

HE  had  been  on  what  most  anybody 
would  agree  was  pretty  trying  sort  of 
work;  and  so,  having  an  idea  that  a 
furlough  was  coming  to  him,  he  appHed  for  it, 
but  did  not  get  it.  The  department  had  other 
things  in  view.  Instead  of  going  home,  he 
took  time  to  write  a  few  letters,  printing  the 
one  to  his  little  girl  in  big  capitals,  so  that — 
being  six  going  on  seven — she  might,  with 
mama's  help,  be  able  to  read  it. 

They  sent  him  to  a  ship  that  had  been  run- 
ning between  north  and  south  ports  on  our  own 
coast,  shifting  in  winter-time  to  tropical  waters. 
She  was  one  of  a  group  of  thirty  or  forty  that 
the  department  had  on  its  little  list  to  be 
made  over  into  transports.  She  was  the  hand- 
somest boat,  but  war  makes  nothing  of  beauty. 
Our  ojflicer  ordered  all  her  gleaming  black  un- 
derpaint  off,  also  her  pure  white  topside  enam- 
elling with  the  gold  decorations  here  and  there; 
then  he  swabbed  her  top  and  bottom  with  that 
dull  blue-gray  which  the  naval  sharps  say  does 
blend  best  with  a  deep-sea  background. 

24 


SEEING  THEM  ACROSS  25 

She  had  the  prettiest  little  lounging-room. 
Our  officers  retained  that — for  even  in  war 
officers  must  have  some  place  aboard  ship  to 
gather  for  a  smoke  and  gossip — but  they  threw 
out  the  large,  lovely  fat  pieces  of  furniture. 
In  case  of  submarine  attack  or  an  order  to 
abandon  ship,  the  men  might  want  to  make  a 
passage  of  that  room  in  a  hurry  and  no  time 
there — in  the  dark  it  might  be — to  be  falling 
over  chairs  and  tables. 

There  was  a  sun-parlor,  a  large,  splendid 
room  with  wide  windows  and  the  deck  on  three 
sides.  There  were  thick  draperies,  filmy  laces, 
and  many  easy  chairs.  In  the  old  days  cabin 
passengers  used  to  sit  there  and  absorb  the 
soft  tropic  breezes  while  digesting  their  break- 
fasts. An  army  quartermaster-captain  sur- 
veyed it  with  our  naval  officer.  "Swell,''  said 
the  Q.  M.  C.  "We'll  haul  down  that  plush 
and  fluffy  stuff,  dump  those  chairs  and  rugs 
over  the  side,  plant  my  desk  here,  my  chief 
clerk's  there,  my  other  clerks'  desks  over  there, 
open  those  fine  wide  windows  and  let  the  north 
Atlantic  breezes  blow  on  our  beaded  brows 
while  we're  doing  our  paper  work.     Fine  !" 

Our  naval  officer  did  that  and  a  hundred 


26  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

other  things  to  the  inside  and  outside  of  the 
beautiful  ship  and  reported  her  fit  for  transport 
service,  or  as  fit  as  ever  a  made-over  ship  could 
be  made  to  be,  whereupon  he  was  ordered  to 
take  her  to  such  and  such  a  dock  in  such  and 
such  a  port — ^which  he  did.  Then  many  large, 
heavy  cases  were  lowered  into  her  hold,  and 
troops  and  troops  and  more  troops  filed  aboard 
and  took  up  what  was  left  of  the  spaces  between 
decks  with  themselves  and  their  war  gear. 

She  lay  then  with  her  water-line  a  foot  deeper 
than  anybody  around  there  ever  remembered 
seeing  her  in  her  swell  passenger  days;  then 
she  shoved  out  into  the  stream  and  kicked  her 
way  down  the  harbor,  and  as  she  did  so,  though 
there  was  not  a  single  trooper's  head  showing 
above  her  rail,  everybody  seemed  to  know. 
Passing  tugs,  motor-boats,  ferry-boats  blew 
their  whistles — every  kind  of  a  boat  that  had 
a  whistle  blew  it — and  there  was  an  excursion 
boat  loaded  down  with  women  and  children. 
Her  band  had  been  playing  ragtime,  but  it  sud- 
denly stopped  and  broke  into  "Good-by,  Good 
Luck,  God  Bless  You,"  to  the  troop-ship  bound 
for  France. 

There  was  a  war-ship  waiting  below — not  the 


SEEING  THEM  ACROSS  27 

biggest  by  a  good  deal  in  our  fleet,  but  big 
enough  to  have  hope  one  day  of  firing  her 
broadside  on  the  battle-line.  But  the  great 
duty  of  a  war-ship  is  to  be  immediately  useful. 
She  was  there,  and  smaller  war-ships  with  her, 
to  see  that  the  troop-ships  got  protection  on 
the  run  across. 

Our  troop-ship,  other  troop-ships,  every  one 
in  turn,  steamed  up,  reported  her  presence,  and 
tucked  into  a  berth  under  the  wings  of  the  big 
war-ship;  and  there  they  stayed  until  night, 
until  the  signal  came  to  get  under  way.  When 
it  did,  one  after  the  other  they  up-anchored 
and  kicked  into  line.  They  had  been  warned 
to  make  no  fuss  in  going,  and  they  made  none. 
From  somewhere  ashore  a  great  search-light 
swept  our  top  structure,  swept  every  top  struc- 
ture as  we  filed  out.  Some  one  on  each  top 
structure  must  have  given  the  proper  sign,  for 
that  was  all. 

All  that  night,  and  next  day,  for  days  and 
days  thereafter,  with  shifting  formations  and 
varying  speeds,  we  steamed.  All  were  good, 
seaworthy  ships,  but  Httle  things  will  happen. 
There  was  one  that  was  always  lagging.  The 
flag-ship,  meaning  the  war-ship  of  most  tonnage. 


28  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

inquired  why.  The  answer  came,  whereat  the 
war-ship  of  most  tonnage  showed  right  there 
that  she  was  fit  to  do  something  more  than 
furnish  long-reaching  guns  for  the  fleet's  pro- 
tection. 

The  next  thing  the  fleet  knew  they  were  or- 
dered to  shut  off'  steam.  They  did  so.  It 
was  a  perfect,  calm  day,  and  the  ships  lay, 
still  as  paint  between  a  clear  blue  sky  and  a 
deep-blue  sea  while  a  boat-load  of  bluejackets 
from  the  big  fighting  ship  rowed  across  a  swell 
so  gentle  that  it  seemed  to  be  only  serving  to 
put  life  into  a  picture.  The  lagging  steamer 
had  been  short  a  few  oilers  or  firemen  or  water- 
tenders.  The  big  ship  had  them  to  spare. 
After  that  the  slow  one  picked  right  up.  Soon 
it  was  standard  speed  with  everybody  in  proper 
alignment  again. 

Not  often  do  seagoing  people  get  the  chance 
to  see  a  fleet  of  merchant  steamers  cruising 
the  wide  ocean.  A  full-rigged  sailing-ship,  a 
steam-collier,  a  tramp  steamer,  all  came  out 
of  their  way  in  one  day  to  view  the  strange 
sight.  As  they  did  so,  one  of  our  smaller  and 
faster  war-ships  would  trot  over  to  have  a 
closer  peek  in  turn  at  the  curious  ones;   to  ask 


SEEING  THEM  ACROSS  29 

them  questions;  probably  also  to  tell  them  to 
keep  their  wireless  mouths  shut,  if  they  had 
any. 

One  day  one  big  freighter  did  not  answer 
signals  promptly.  Perhaps  she  could  not  read 
them.  In  these  war  times  it  is  not  too  easy 
to  get  crews  who  are  sea-wise  in  every  detail 
— the  expert  signalman  among  the  officers 
might  have  been  off"  watch  and  having  a  nap. 
Anyway,  one  of  our  little  fighting  fellows  went 
bounding .  after  her.  It  was  Hke  watching  a 
sheep-dog  at  work.  The  war-ship  moved  up 
from  behind,  drew  up,  and  then,  showing  her 
teeth,  headed  the  freighter  the  other  way  and 
held  her  headed  that  way  while  she  put  an 
officer  aboard  and  asked  an  explanation,  which 
was  probably  given  and  doubtless  all  right,  for 
the  officer  came  back  and  the  freighter  resumed 
her  regular  course.  Day  in  and  day  out  that 
was  the  way  of  it,  every  passing  ship  being 
viewed  as  suspect  and  our  own  ships,  of  vary- 
ing speeds  and  tonnage,  trying  to  keep  a  good 
alignment. 

The  weather  generally  was  fine,  but  one 
morning  we  ran  into  a  fog.  A  fog  has  its  vir- 
tues;   a  submarine  cannot  see  you  in  a  fog. 


30  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

But  neither  can  you  see  a  submarine.  And 
somewhere  handy  to  you  is  a  bunch  of  your 
own  ships,  and  no  telling  when  one  of  them 
may  come  riding  out  of  the  mist  and  climb 
aboard  by  way  of  your  port  or  starboard 
quarter ! 

A  whistle  by  day  or  a  search-light  by  night 
would  have  been  a  great  help  to  our  naval 
officer  on  the  bridge  during  that  fog,  but  he 
was  denied  that.  So  he  made  out  (as  did 
every  other  commander  on  every  other  bridge 
during  the  fog)  with  whatever  other  means  he 
could  devise.     Nothing  happened  to  us. 

The  fog  passed  on,  and  then  one  day  came  a 
slaty  gray  sea  and  a  slaty  sky.  Gray  seas  look 
hard;  white  crests  moving  across  gray  seas 
look  hard  too.  Our  naval  officer  took  time  to 
look  around  on  them.  Gray  hulls  were  smash- 
ing high  bows  into  them,  making  boiling  white 
water  of  the  hard  gray  sea  and  throwing  it  to 
either  side  in  fine,  high-rolling  billows  as  they 
pressed  on.  They  were  a  fine  sight  then,  with 
the  smoke  pouring  out  and  trailing  low  from 
some  of  them.  They  were  not  trying  to  make 
smoke,  but  if  a  ship  must  make  smoke,  it  will 
not  be  seen  so  far  on  a  gray  day. 


SEEING  THEM  ACROSS  31 

Our  naval  officer  held  the  bridge  from  early 
that  morning  to  nine  o'clock  that  night.  He 
had  an  idea  that  he  might  be  able  to  sneak  in 
a  couple  of  hours'  sleep  against  the  strain  of  the 
later  night.  It  was  not  bad  weather  "when  he 
left — a  good  breeze  blowing  and  plenty  of 
white  showing.  It  was  dirty,  but  not  bad 
weather.  He  got  in  one  hour  in  his  bunk, 
turning  in  with  his  clothes  on,  when  he  was 
called  to  go  on  the  bridge  again.  Something 
had  happened.  He  could  feel  the  increasing 
wind  before  he  was  fairly  rolled  out  of  his 
bunk. 

As  he  stepped  out  on  deck  he  could  see  that 
the  lookouts  had  adopted  life-belts*  for  the 
night.  The  lookouts  were  men  from  among 
the  troops,  and  now  each  man  as  he  went  off 
watch  was  handing  over  his  life-belt  to  the 
next  coming  on.  They  had  had  to  use  the  sol- 
diers for  lookouts.  In  these  war  days  no  mer- 
chant ship  can  supply  from  her  regular  crew 
one-tenth  of  the  men  needed  for  lookout  work 
in  the  war  zone.  The  soldiers  were  all  right, 
but  just  then  our  naval  officer  felt  sorry  for 
them.  He  had  been  having  them  up  before 
him  afternoons,  lecturing  them  on  their  duties 


32  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

as  lookouts.  That  very  afternoon  he  had  had 
a  bunch  of  them  before  him  while  he  ex- 
plained a  few  new  things.  He  had  spent 
extra  time  on  the  men  who  were  to  be  on  for- 
ward watch  this  very  night,  with  the  men  who 
were  to  go  into  the  bow  or  into  the  forward 
crow's  nest.  And  now  they  were  there,  buried 
as  the  bow  went  smash  into  it,  or — those  of 
them  who  had  drawn  the  crow's  nest — swing- 
ing a  hundred  feet  in  the  air.  All  right  for  old 
seagoers,  but  most  of  these  boys  had  never  in 
their  lives  before  been  on  an  ocean-going  ship. 
Some  had  never  even  seen  a  big  ship  until  they 
came  to  the  seacoast  for  their  trip.  They  had 
great  eyesight,  some  of  these  young  fellows — 
men  who  had  lain  on  the  bull's-eye  at  a  thou- 
sand yards  regularly  were  bound  to  have  that 
— and  they  made  good  lookouts  once  they  got 
the  idea,  but  climbing  the  last  twenty  feet  of 
that  ladder  to  the  crow's  nest,  leaning  back 
under  part  of  the  time  with  life-belt  stuffed 
under  their  overcoats — they  surely  must  have 
been  thinking  that  a  soldier's  duties  were  diffi- 
cult as  well  as  various  in  these  days  of  war. 

A  ship  on  tossing  seas  and  the  wind  blowing 
a  dirge  through  the  rigging — ^well,  a  man  may 


SEEING  THEM  ACROSS  33 

be  brave  enough  to  fight  all  the  Germans  this 
side  the  Russian  hne,  but  if  he  is  new  to  sea 
life  he  is  apt  to  see  things.  Two  soldiers  were 
standing  on  deck  when  our  naval  officer  came 
out  of  his  room.  They  were  not  on  guard. 
They  did  not  have  to  be  there — they  were  stay- 
ing awake  on  their  own  account.  One  said  to 
the  other:  "There,  there — look!  Ain't  that  a 
submarine?" 

It  was  a  shadow  as  high  as  a  house.  "If 
that  is  a  submarine,"  thinks  our  officer,  "then 
it  is  good  night  to  us,  for  she's  a  whale  of  a  one ! " 

It  was  no  submarine.  It  was  the  shadow  of 
one  of  their  own  ships  which  had  been  driven 
out  of  column. 

It  was  blowing  hard  when  our  officer  made 
the  bridge.  He  could  not  see  far,  but  far  enough 
to  see  that  the  ocean  was  black,  and  that 
across  the  black  of  it  the  white  patches  were 
flying — dead  white  patches  leaping  high  in 
the  night. 

The  fleet  was  in  direct  column  ahead,  or 
should  have  been.  Some  were  surely  having 
their  troubles  staying  there.  This  steaming 
close  behind  a  ship,  with  another  ship  close  be- 
hind you — and  you  have  to  be  close  up  to  see 


34  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

from  one  to  the  other  on  such  a  night — made 
me  think  as  I  stood  under  the  bridge  that 
night:  "Give  me  all  the  submarines  in  the 
world  before  this  with  a  fleet  that  has  not  had 
a  chance  to  practise  evolutions." 

There  was  not  a  steaming  light  of  any  kind, 
not  even  one  shaded  Httle  one  in  the  stern, 
which  an  enemy  might  see  and,  seeing,  swing  in 
behind  it.  Rather  than  show  even  the  smallest 
little  guiding  light,  our  fellows  preferred  to 
steam  this  way  in  the  night. 

The  glad  morning  came,  glad  for  the  reason 
that  an  almost  warm,  bright  sun  came  with  it. 
The  sun  showed  three  ships  gone  from  the 
column.  There  was  more  than  one  of  us  who 
wished  that  we  too  had  gone  from  the  column 
about  six  hours  ago.  We  would  have  slept  bet- 
ter. Still,  it  was  a  good  experience  to  have — be- 
hind you.  Wind  and  sea  went  down;  all  hands 
felt  better — especially  the  lookouts.  Those  who 
came  down  from  the  crow's  nest  looked  as  if 
the  grace  of  God  had  suddenly  fallen  on  them. 

By  and  by  we  picked  up  the  drifters.  They 
were  looking  just  as  hard  for  us  as  we  were  for 
them;  and  later  that  day  we  ran  into  our  escorts 
from  the  other  side.     Everybody  at  once  felt 


SEEING  THEM  ACROSS  35 

as  if  the  trip  was  as  good  as  over.  The  fact 
was  that  the  worst  part  of  the  war  zone  was 
ahead  of  us.  All  hands  were  still  turning  in 
with  life-belts  handy,  and  most  of  them  with 
clothes  on,  but  there  was  a  feeling  that  now  it 
was  up  to  these  new  escorts. 

Before  we  reached  France  on  this  run  we 
were  in  a  U-boat  fight,  which  I  shall  tell  of  later. 
What  I  want  to  say  now  is  that  the  submarine 
fight  had  an  enjoyable  side  to  it,  but  as  for  that 
night  run  of  our  troop-ships  in  gale  and  sea — 
a  big  ship  just  ahead,  a  big  ship  just  behind, 
big  high-bowed  ships  plunging  down  at  four- 
teen knots  an  hour  from  roaring  waters  in  the 
dark — there  was  no  fun  in  that ! 

Of  the  scores  of  devices  the  fleet  used  to  beat 
the  U-boats  on  that  run  across,  a  man  can  say 
nothing  here.  But  to  get  back:  our  naval 
officer  stuck  to  his  bridge  until  one  most  beau- 
tiful morning  he  took  his  ship  into  a  most 
beautiful  port  on  a  most  beautiful  shore.  I 
never  before  heard  anybody  so  describe  that 
same  port,  but  the  general  verdict  says  it  did 
look  pretty  good. 

This  story  of  our  troop-ship's  run  across  is 
given  from  the  view-point  of  the  naval  officer 


36  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

in  charge.  It  could  just  as  well  have  been 
written  from  the  view-point  of  the  merchant 
captain  or  his  officers  aboard — all  on  the  job; 
or  the  chief  engineer  or  his  assistants — all  on 
the  job,  and  who  put  in  more  than  one  hour 
guessing  at  what  was  going  on  above;  or  from 
the  view-point  of  the  quartermaster  captain,  or 
his  clerks,  or  the  oilers,  or  the  firemen,  or  the 
water-tenders,  or  the  cooks,  or  anybody  else, 
high  or  low,  in  the  ship's  regular  service. 

This  transport  service  is  one  tough  game. 
It  is  well  enough  for  us  who  have  but  one  trip 
to  make.  But  one  trip  after  another !  They 
had  good  right  to  look  a  bit  younger  when  they 
made  the  other  side.  But  before  we  can  win 
this  war  we've  got  to  get  the  million  or  two  or 
three  million  men  across;  and  the  millions  of 
tons  of  supplies.  Somebody  has  got  to  see 
them  across.  These  men  on  the  troop-ships  are 
doing  it.    May  nothing  happen  to  them ! 


THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR 

THE  soldier  lookouts  in  the  forward 
crow's  nest  had  been  especially  advised 
to  have  an  eye  out  for  the  convoys 
which  were  to  pick  us  up  as  we  neared  the 
other  side;  and  they  were  very  much  on  the 
job. 

One  bright  morning  came:  "Smoke  three 
points  off  the  port  bow.  .  .  .  Smoke  broad  off 
the  starboard  bow.  .  .  .  Smoke  dead  ahead. 
.  .  .  One  point  off  the  .  .  .  Broad  off  the 
..."  and  so  on.  Their  excited  calls  rattled 
down  like  rapid  fire  to  the  bridge;  the  thrill 
in  their  voices  rolled  like  a  wave  through  the 
ship.  That  smoke,  incidentally,  meant  that  the 
strangers,  whoever  they  were,  had  already 
identified  us  and  so  were  not  afraid  to  let  us 
see  them. 

Everybody  that  was  not  already  on  deck 
came  running  up  to  have  a  look  for  himself. 
It  was  our  escort.  Darting  across  our  bows 
they  came — low-riding,  slim,  gray  bodies.  The 
ranking  one  reported  to  our  flag-ship;   and  all, 

37 


38  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

without  any  fuss  or  extra  foam,  took  position 
and  went  to  work  as  though  they  had  been 
there  for  weeks.  And  as  they  did  our  big 
war-ship  and  the  Httle  ones  which  had  come 
across  with  her  wheeled  about  and  went  off. 
There  was  no  ceremonious  leave-taking.  They 
simply  turned  on  their  heels  and  flew.  They 
might  as  well  have  said:  "We  are  glad  to  have 
met  you  and  been  with  you,  but  we  can  do  no 
more  for  you,  so  good-by  and  good  luck;  we're 
going  back  home  as  fast  as  we  can  get  there." 

A  soldier  watched  them  going  and  said: 
"The  night  before  we  left  home  I  went  to  a 
show,  and  a  fellow  sang:  *  Good-by,  Broadway! 
Hello,  France  T  I  thought  it  was  great.  I  know 
what  they're  saying  aboard  those  ships  there 
now.  'Hello,  Broadway!  Good-by,  France!' 
is  what  they're  saying.  And  I  betcher  it'll  be 
a  straight  line  with  no  time  wasted  zigzagging 
for  them  on  the  way  back!" 

He  had  it  about  right.  They  carried  the 
most  eloquent  sterns  that  any  of  us  had  seen 
on  ships  for  a  long  time.  The  big  one  in  the 
middle,  the  others  like  chickens  under  either 
wing — away  they  went,  belting  it  for  about 
sixteen  knots  good.     In  one  half-hour  all  we 


THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR  39 

could  see  of  them  was  a  cloud  of  smoke  to  the 
west'ard.  Just  how  far  off  the  French  coast 
we  were  at  this  time  does  not  matter  here,  or 
from  what  direction  we  were  approaching;  but 
we  were  far  enough  off  for  that  group  of  de- 
stroyers to  show  how  they  went  about  their 
work  of  guarding  the  troop-ships.  To  comb 
the  sea  about  us  was  their  mission;  and  they 
were  attending  to  it  every  minute.  The  fleet 
steamed  on. 

We  proceeded  under  advices  not  to  fall 
asleep  with  too  much  clothes  on,  and  never  to 
get  too  far  away  from  our  life-belts.  It  may 
have  been  true  that  some  men  slept  with  their 
life-belts  on,  but  it  is  probably  not  true  that 
one  man  took  his  to  the  bathroom  with  him — 
not  true  because  about  the  time  we  got  that 
far  along  the  steward  refused  to  prepare  any 
more  baths.  He  had  enough  on  his  mind,  he 
said,  without  fussing  with  baths. 

There  was  one  place  we  looked  forward  to 
passing  with  lively  feelings.  We  may  not  name 
the  place  here,  but  here  is  how  it  was  described: 
"Ever  been  to  that  big  aquarium  in  Naples? 
Yes  ?  Well,  remember  those  devil-fish  hiding 
behind  the  rock  on  the  bottom  ?    Along  comes 


40  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

an  innocent  young  fish  who  is  a  stranger  to 
those  waters.  Mr.  Devilfish,  hiding  behind, 
has  a  peek  at  it  coming.  He  waits.  Mr. 
Young  Fish  drifts  by  his  hiding-place,  and 
then —    Good  night,  young  fishie." 

That  kind  of  talk  in  the  watches  of  the  night 
sounded  like  lively  action  before  us.  We 
waited  for — call  it  the  Devilfish's  Cave — and 
waited;  and  the  first  thing  we  knew  when  we 
came  to  inquire  further  about  it,  we  were  safely 
past  it,  with  never  a  sign  of  any  devil-fish,  un- 
less it  would  be  the  one  torpedo  which  went  by 
the  bow  of  one  of  us  from  some  distance  one 
noontime.  Some  distance  it  must  have  been 
because  it  was  a  clear  day  with  a  smooth  sea, 
and  under  such  weather  conditions,  with  the 
hundreds  of  wide-awake  lookouts  in  the  fleet, 
no  U-boat  could  have  put  up  a  periscope 
within  any  near  distance  and  not  be  seen  by 
somebody.  As  for  long-distance  shots  from 
submarines — there  is  small  need  to  worry  about 
them.  Subs  like  to  get  within  a  thousand 
yards  or  less.  Those  three  and  four  mile  shots 
— it  is  like  trying  to  hit  a  sea-gull  with  a  rifle. 
Amateurs  try  that  kind  of  shooting,  but  the 
professional,  who  has  to  reckon  the  cost  of 


THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR  41 

powder  and  shot,  lets  it  pass.  Not  that  the 
Germans  are  sparing  of  the  cost  of  war,  but  a 
sub  which  has  to  make  a  voyage  of  three  thou- 
sand miles  to  take  on  a  fresh  load  of  torpedoes 
is  not  firing  too  many  for  the  mere  practice. 

We  drew  near  the  coast  of  France,  and  still 
nothing  had  happened.  We  were  getting  hails, 
of  course,  from  the  lookouts.  There  was  one 
who  called  it  a  dull  watch  when  he  did  not  see 
at  least  one  periscope.  He  had  never  seen  a 
periscope  in  his  life,  but  he  had  read  about 
periscopes.  One  night  just  at  dark  he  stood 
us  all  on  our  heads  by  reporting  one  just  along- 
side. We  all  got  a  flash  at  it  then,  an  ominous 
object,  bobbing  under  our  port  quarter,  and 
then  it  went  down  into  our  wake.  It  bobbed 
up  again,  and  we  all  had  another  look.  It  was 
a  beer-keg.  The  ship's  first  officer,  the  one 
who  had  a  gold  medal  as  big  as  a  saucer  for 
saving  life  at  sea,  eyed  the  keg,  and  then  he 
eyed  the  lookout,  saying:  "An  empty  one  too! 
If  you'd  only  report  a  full  one,  we  might  gaff^ 
it  aboard." 

When  that  same  first  officer  was  one  day 
asked  if  he  intended  taking  his  big  medal  with 
him  in  case  we  had  to  take  to  the  boats,  he 


42  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

replied:  "With  twenty-eight  persons  in  the 
boat!  Good  Lord,  don't  you  think  she'll  be 
carrying  enough  freight?" 

We  steamed  along,  dark  night  astern  this 
time  and  the  white  morning  above  our  bow. 
The  bridge — three  naval  and  two  ship's  officers 
- — had  for  some  time  been  using  the  glasses. 
From  aloft  forward  came  the  sudden  yell: 
"Land  ho!" 

The  bridge  nodded  that  it  heard.  "Land 
ho !"  repeated  the  lookout  stentoriously.  "Two 
points  off  the  port  bow,"  and  then,  peering 
doubtfully  down  at  the  bridge:    "Am  I  right  ?" 

"You  are,"  said  the  bridge  sweetly;  "we've 
been  looking  at  it  for  half  an  hour."  Which 
was  rather  rough,  for  to  shore-going  eyes  land 
does  at  first  look  like  a  low  cloud  on  the  horizon 
and,  naturally,  a  fellow  wants  to  make  sure. 

Pretty  soon  we  could  most  of  us  see  it  from 
the  deck,  and  it  did  look  good.  I  once  saw  the 
flat,  bleak  Atlantic  coast  of  Patagonia  after  ten 
days  at  sea,  and  the  high  iron  wintry  coast 
of  Newfoundland  after  another  period  at  sea, 
and  I  clearly  recall  that  even  they  both  looked 
like  fine  countries.  And  the  coast  of  France 
was  neither  bleak  nor  icy,  so  you  may  guess 


THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR  43 

that  it  was  a  pleasing  sight  on  this  summer 
morning.  It  was  a  dream  of  a  day,  the  sea 
like  a  green-tinted  mirror,  the  sky  blue  as 
paint,  and  the  softest  little  breath  of  air  float- 
ing oflF  the  land  to  us.  We  were  perhaps  ten 
miles  offshore. 

The  enchanted  land  lay  before  us  and  our 
troubles  behind  us — or  so  we  thought — and 
yet  we  were  many  of  us  disappointed.  After 
our  more  than  three  thousand  miles  we  had 
not  even  caught  sight  of  a  U-boat. 

Now,  we  probably  did  not  want  to  see  one, 
but  we  sort  of  had  an  idea  that  we  were  en- 
titled to  have  one  pop  up  and  then  disappear. 
Something  to  talk  about,  without  anybody 
coming  to  harm  through  it — that  was  about 
our  composite  idea. 

However,  there  are  compensations  for  all 
things;  we  could  now  prepare  peacefully  for 
going  ashore.  I  was  in  the  lounge-room  be- 
low sharpening  a  pencil,  and,  there  being  no 
waste-basket  handy,  carefully  shunting  the 
shavings  into  a  writing-desk  drawer. 

The  fire-alarm  rang.  That  was  the  signal 
to  hurry  on  deck  with  your  life-belt,  take  your 
station  by  your  boat,  and  prepare  to  abandon 


44  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

ship.  But  we  had  been  doing  that  every  day 
since  we  left  home.  The  first  time  we  heard 
that  call  we  had  gone  jumping,  but  after  the 
third  or  fourth  time  we  moved  more  leisurely. 

Some  took  their  Hfe-belts  from  their  rooms 
and  started  up.  Every  soldier,  of  course, 
grabbed  one  from  where  they  were  piled  up 
in  the  passageways  and  went  at  once.  They 
had  no  option.  Their  officers  would  get  after 
them  if  they  did  not. 

I  thought  I  would  finish  sharpening  my  pen- 
cil. I  thought  I  heard  a  blast  from  a  ship's 
whistle  somewhere  outside;  but  I  was  not  sure. 
Then  I  heard  a  blast  from  our  own  ship's 
whistle.  Wugh-wugh-wugh !  I  did  not  wait 
for  any  more.  I  did  not  finish  sharpening  the 
pencil.  I  did  not  wait  to  shut  the  desk  drawer. 
I  did  not  do  anything  but  move.  There  were 
six  blasts  from  the  whistle,  and  six  blasts  meant 
U-boats. 

There  was  a  heavy-set  officer  coming  down 
the  passageway.  He  was  heavier  by  twenty 
pounds  than  I  was,  but  I  had  more  speed.  I 
know  I  h^d.  Not  since  the  winter's  day  on 
George's  Bank  a  quartering  sea  chased  me  down 
the  cabin  companionway  of  the  Charles  W.  Par- 


THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR  45 

ker  of  Gloucester  have  I  moved  so  fast  on  a 
ship,  and  I  was  fifteen  years  younger  then. 
We  bounced  off  each  other.  We  did  not  stop 
to  talk  when  we  straightened  out.  He  went 
his  way  and  I  went  mine,  and  if  I  looked 
anything  like  him,  then  my  jaw  was  thrust 
out  and  my  eyes  had  an  earnest  look  in 
them. 

My  Hfe-belt  was  under  my  bunk.  It  did 
not  stay  there  long.  I  went  back  down  the 
passageway  jumping.  There  was  a  fine  crush 
going  up  to  the  boat-deck.  Only  a  seagoing 
man  knows  how  to  take  a  ship's  ladder  with 
speed.  You  just  got  to  have  practice  at  it. 
There  were  some  fine  athletic  boys  among  the 
troopers,  but  "Sweet  mother,"  wailed  a  ship's 
man,  "are  those  new  army  shoes  made  of 
leather,  or  are  they  lead  that  they  move  so 
slow.?"  And  that  comment  did  not  have  to 
travel  a  lonesome  road. 

While  scooting  up  the  ladder  we  heard  a  gun; 
and  another  gun.  As  we  made  the  boat-deck 
there  was  another  ship  barking  out  six  short 
blasts. 

The  ships  of  the  fleet,  when  we  got  to  where 
we  could  see  them,  were  headed  every  which 


46  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

way.  We  could  feel  our  own  ship  heel  over — 
she  turned  so  sharply.  Every  ship  in  the  fleet 
was  going  it — right  angles,  quarter  angles,  all 
degrees  of  angles.  But  what  impressed  us 
most — ^we  almost  laughed  to  see  her — was  the 
lubber  of  the  fleet.  She  was  twice  the  tonnage 
of  most  of  us,  and  early  in  the  run  across  she 
had  brought  anguish  to  our  souls  by  the  way 
she  lagged.  "You  bum,  you  loafer,  you  old 
cart-horse,  why  don't  you  move  up  V  our  sol- 
diers used  to  yell  across  at  her.  She  had  not 
then  enough  men  in  her  steam  department  to 
keep  her  engines  warm,  so  she  reported.  But 
now  she  had  steam  enough.  She  was  wide  and 
high,  a  huge  hulk  of  a  ship,  and  here  she  was 
now  charging — charging  was  the  word — like  a 
motor-boat  at  where  somebody  said  the  U-boat 
had  just  submerged.  Whether  she  got  her 
U-boat,  I  don't  know;  but  she  certainly  did 
cut  through  the  water  for  about  a  mile. 

The  ship  next  behind  us  went  after  some- 
thing; and  the  ship  next  ahead  went  tearing 
away  after  something  else,  and  another  ship — 
but,  man,  a  battalion  of  eyes  could  not  follow 
them  all.  A  destroyer  went — zizz-sh  zizz — a 
thirty-odd  knot  clip — and  the  next  thing  we 


THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR  47 

saw  was  a  ten-foot  column  of  solid  white  water 
shooting  straight  up  beside  that  destroyer. 

And  then  came  the  terrific  Bo-o-om !  Our 
ship  shook  from  one  end  to  the  other.  I  thought 
it  came  from  inside  of  us — that  it  was  a  load- 
ing-port door  let  drop  by  some  careless  ship's 
man  below.  The  ship's  officer  in  charge  of  our 
life-boat  thought  so,  too.  He  stepped  to  the 
ship's  side  to  look  down.  "That  one,  he 
should  be  put  in  the  brig — scaring  us  all  like 
that!"  I  agreed  with  him  heartily,  only  I 
thought  he  should  be  put  in  a  second  brig 
after  he  got  out  of  the  first  one.  Some  time 
later  we  learned  that  it  was  the  shock  from  the 
bomb  dropped  by  the  destroyer,  from  which 
you  can  gauge  what  chance  the  submarine  will 
have  which  happens  to  catch  one  of  those 
bombs  on  its  back. 

We  carried  two  5-inch  guns  in  our  bow  and 
two  astern.  Those  gun  crews  had  been  stand- 
ing by  those  guns  from  the  first  day  out.  For 
the  last  three  days  they  had  been  sleeping  near 
them  in  their  life-jackets  and  taking  their 
meals  standing  beside  them.  They  were  not 
going  to  be  left  out  of  it.  About  a  thousand 
yards  away  some  one  reported  a  floating  tor- 


48  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

pedo.  Whether  it  was  a  live  or  a  spent  one 
made  no  matter.  It  was  too  soft  a  target; 
besides,  some  ship  in  the  hurry  of  manoeuvring 
might  run  into  it.  Bang!  went  two  of  our 
5-inch  fellows,  one  from  each  end  of  the  ship 
and  both  together. 

That  was  when  we  heard  from  our  chief 
engineer.  He  had  been  below  from  the  be- 
ginning, and  knew  from  the  way  the  bells  were 
coming  down  from  the  bridge  that  there  was 
something  doing  topside.  When  the  destroyer 
dropped  her  first  bomb  he  wondered  if  the  ship 
was  torpedoed.  He  waited,  and  his  men,  with 
their  shovels  and  slice-bars  and  oil-cans — they 
waited,  every  one  of  them,  with  one  sharp  eye 
to  the  nearest  ash-hoist,  which  reminded  the 
chief  that  he  would  never  leave  home  again — 
and  this  time  he  meant  it — without  installing 
those  four  more  ladders  leading  up  from  the 
engine  and  fire-room  quarters  to  the  decks. 
No,  sir,  he  would  not. 

But  nothing  happened !  And  then  those 
two  5-inch  guns  went  off  together.  War-ships 
are  built  to  withstand  impact,  but  merchant- 
ships — no.  This  time  the  chief  was  sure  she 
was  torpedoed.     His  fire-room  force  were  mostly 


THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR  49 

Spaniards.  He  used  to  talk  at  table  about  his 
fire-room  gang.  "You  would  think,  with  your 
ship  coming  through  the  war  zone  and  your 
watch  down  in  the  bottom  of  her,  that  you 
would  want  to  go  up  topside  when  your  watch 
was  done,  for,  of  course,  if  any  U-boat  got  the 
ship,  it  would  be  the  fellows  below  who  would 
first  get  the  full  benefit."  But  that  gang  of 
his!  "Doggone,  they'd  sit  there  when  their 
watch  was  over,  six  or  eight  of  'em,  and  play 
some  cross-eyed  Spanish  card-game  for  a  peseta 
a  corner.     What  d'y'  know  about  them  ?" 

The  chief's  gang  could  not  talk  English,  but 
they  had  speaking  eyes.  They  now  looked  at 
the  chief,  and  he  went  up  to  have  a  peek.  He 
came  back  soon.  "They  are  having  target 
practice,"  he  told  them.  He  had  been  running 
the  Caribbean  ports  long  enough  to  be  able  to 
say  that  much  in  Spanish;  but  more  than  all  he 
smiled  as  he  said  it.  You  want  to  smile  to  get 
away  with  anything  like  that  in  the  fire-room 
of  a  troop-ship  in  the  U-boat  country. 

Every  ship  in  the  fleet  was  now  having  some- 
thing to  say  with  her  guns;  and  with  their 
incessant  manceuvring  at  such  close  quarters 
the  sea  was  all  torn  up  by  their  wakes.    Two 


so  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

or  three  wakes  or  bow  waves  would  cross  each 
other,  and  the  sea  would  roll  up  with  a  bound- 
ing white  crest.  There  were  also  the  wakes  of 
hidden  submarines.  You  could  tell  them  if 
you  saw  any  by  the  way  they  did  not  stop  in 
one  place;  they  moved  on.  When  a  gunner 
saw  a  submarine  wake  he  fired;  where  he 
wasn't  sure  he  fired  anyway.  What  was  he 
there  for .?  Bang !  Boom !  Solid  shot  were 
ricochetting,  piling  up  little  white  splashes,  and 
the  shrapnel  were  making  little  holes  and  burst- 
ing into  little  white  smoke  pufFs  all  over  the 
place. 

You  must  not  forget  that  it  was  a  beautiful 
day  and  a  perfectly  calm  sea  with  the  shore  of 
France  looming  like  a  blue  mirage  on  the  hori- 
zon. It  lasted  about  forty  minutes  altogether, 
and  through  it  all  the  little  destroyers — don't 
forget  them — were  weaving  in  and  out  among 
the  big  ships;  and  on  the  big  ships  were  thou- 
sands of  troopers,  white  life-belts  around  their 
olive-drab  uniforms,  standing  steadily  by  life- 
boats and  rafts. 

Our  fellows  on  the  destroyers  did  handle 
their  little  ships  well.  And  the  troop-ships  were 
handled  well — no  collisions  and  no  gun-shells 


THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR  51 

going  aboard  anybody  else.  A  few  went  across 
other  people's  bows  and  sterns,  but  not  too 
near  to  worry.  And  in  the  middle  of  it  all, 
our  guns  made  so  much  noise  that  before  we 
heard  them  we  saw  them — two  airplanes, 
whirring  and  cavorting  about  and  above  us. 
Whenever  they  saw  a  destroyer  turn  and  shoot, 
they  would  turn  and  shoot  after  the  destroyer. 
They  could  move  about  three  times  as  fast  as 
a  destroyer,  and  so  quite  often  beat  the  de- 
stroyer to  it. 

Later  the  airplanes  escorted  us  into  port. 
They  were  big,  powerful  biplanes,  and  carried 
a  sky-pointing  gun  mounted  forward  and  the 
colors  of  France  painted  on  their  little  wings 
aft.  They  kept  circling  about  us  until  we  made 
our  harbor.  Whenever  they  swooped  low 
enough  our  troopers  gave  them  a  fine  cheer. 

My  job  being  to  tell  what  I  saw  and  heard, 
I  want  to  say  here  that  throughout  the  entire 
melee  I  never  saw  one  periscope !  And  there 
were  thousands  like  me  who  never  saw  a  peri- 
scope. But  there  were  hundreds  of  others — 
cool,  sensible  people — ^who  are  ready  to  make 
affidavits  that  they  did  see  periscopes. 

Why  did  not  more  of  us  see  any .?    Well,  a 


52  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

submarine  commander  needs  to  turn  up  his 
periscope  for  only  four,  five,  six,  or  seven  sec- 
onds to  have  a  look.  If  you  do  not  happen 
to  be  gazing  directly  at  the  spot,  you  do  not 
see  it  or  the  white  bone  which  it  makes  going 
through  the  water. 

On  my  ship  the  ranking  officer  was  a  regular 
army  colonel  who  had  seen  active  and  danger- 
ous service  in  the  Philippines  and  elsewhere. 
He  is  given  rather  to  understatement  than  over- 
statement of  facts — a  cool,  level-headed  ob- 
server. He  saw  a  periscope.  We  had  another 
officer  who  had  been  in  the  service  in  the 
Spanish  War,  had  got  out  and  was  now  back. 
He  was  probably  the  best  lookout  of  all  the 
army  officers  in  the  ship — a  solid,  substantial 
man  with  a  keen  eye.  He  could  see  what  any- 
body else  could  see,  but  further  than  that  you 
had  to  show  him.  Several  of  us  had  already 
christened  him  "Show  me.'*  He  reported  two 
periscopes.  Now  he  had  never  seen  a  sub- 
marine operating  in  his  life.  I  asked  him  to 
describe  the  action  of  the  periscope.  He  de- 
scribed it  perfectly  as  I  had  noticed  it  in  trial 
trips  of  submarines  off  Cape  Cod,  which  is 
where  the  Electric  Boat  Company  used  to  try 


THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR  53 

theirs  out  before  turning  them  over  to  pur- 
chasers. 

My  own  notion  of  it  is  that  the  U-boats 
have  many  of  us  bluffed.  They  must  be  capa- 
ble men  who  go  in  submarines;  of  good  nerve, 
quick  wit,  and  the  power  to  withstand  long 
nervous  strain.  Such  men  in  a  submarine  are 
going  to  throw  great  scares  into  people  of  less 
capacity  on  surface  ships.  Put  such  men  some- 
where else  than  in  a  submarine  and  they  will 
outwit  men  not  so  well  equipped  for  the  war 
game. 

But  these  men,  no  men,  can  make  the  sub- 
marine do  impossible  things.  Before  firing  a 
torpedo  the  submarine  must  come  near  enough 
to  the  surface  to  stick  out  her  periscope,  to  have 
a  look  around  to  locate  her  target.  In  sticking 
out  the  periscope,  lookouts  on  ships  are  likely 
to  see  it.  On  merchant  ships  they  do  not  keep 
a  lookout  which  combs  the  sea  thoroughly; 
they  do  not  carry  men  enough  for  that.  The 
strain  of  such  a  lookout  is  great.  Men  cannot 
stand  to  it  as  to  an  ordinary  watch;  they  have 
to  be  relieved  frequently;  and  so  submarines 
may  have  an  advantage  over  merchant  ships, 
especially    if   the    merchant    ships    are    slow- 


54  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

moving  freighters.  But  a  war-ship,  or  a  troop- 
ship in  convoy  is  something  else.  Troop-ships 
carry  an  immense  number  of  lookouts,  not 
overworked  men  who  are  liable  to  go  to  sleep 
on  watch,  but  keen-eyed  young  fellows  of  high 
vitality,  surrounded  by  other  young  fellows  of 
high  vitality,  and  all  competing  to  see  who  can 
see  something  first. 

They  will  spot  a  periscope,  under  normal 
conditions,  at  a  pretty  good  distance;  which 
does  not  mean  that  that  periscope  is  at  once 
going  to  be  blown  out  of  the  water.  Hitting  a 
piece  of  4-inch  pipe  at  any  distance  is  not  easy; 
the  pipe  moving  and  the  ship  moving  does  not 
make  it  any  easier. 

But  the  submarine  has  shown  herself.  To 
get  her  torpedo  home  she  will  have  to  move 
nearer.  With  a  thousand  eyes  looking  for  her 
and  five,  six,  a  dozen  ships  with  four  guns  or 
more  apiece  waiting  to  have  a  crack  at  her, 
she  is  not  going  to  have  a  pleasant  time  after 
she  moves  nearer.  She  must  show  her  peri- 
scope again  to  locate  her  target.  To  show  her 
periscope  she  must  get  her  hull  somewhere 
near  the  surface;  it  takes  a  little  time — not  so 
much,  but  a  little  time  to  get  her  hull  safely 


THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR  55 

below  again;  and  while  she  is  doing  that  who 
can  say  that  not  one  of  our  five,  six,  or  a  dozen 
ships  will  be  handy  to  the  spot  ?  And  if  one 
of  our  ships  should  happen  to  be  handy  enough, 
what  can  save  the  submarine  from  being 
rammed  ?  And  if  she  is  rammed  there  is  no 
hope  for  her — she  is  gone. 

I  am  pretty  much  of  one  mind  with  our  first 
officer  in  this  submarine  matter.  In  the  mid- 
dle of  the  combat  off  the  French  coast  he  was 
making  the  rounds,  cutting  away  the  lashings 
which  held  the  life-boats  to  the  davits — this  in 
case  we  had  to  leave  the  ship.  He  had  a 
squint  at  the  banging  guns,  the  charging  troop- 
ships, the  flying  destroyers;  and  then  he  looked 
up  long  enough  to  say:  "A  fat  chance  a  U-boat 
would  have  if  she  so  much  as  stuck  her  nose 
out.  In  four  seconds  she'd  be  Hke  a  rabbit 
among  a  pack  of  hunting-dogs.  She  might  get 
away,  but  I  bet  you  no  bookmaker  would  take 
her  end  of  it." 

This  argument  does  not  apply  to  a  slow- 
steaming  freighter  going  it  alone;  it  is  for  the 
matter  of  troop-ships  moving  at  a  fairly  good 
speed.  For  myself  that  tirne  the  fleet  steamed 
in  direct  column  ahead,  one  ship  jam  up  be- 


56  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

hind  another,  in  a  rough  sea  and  on  a  black 
night,  at  high  speed  without  Hghts  of  any  kind, 
they  did  a  more  difficult  thing  than  to  evade  or 
stand  off  half  a  dozen  U-boat  attacks.  No 
fleet  of  ships  can  be  put  beyond  all  danger  of 
submarine  attack,  but  the  danger  to  the  subs 
can  be  made  so  great  that  it  won't  be  worth 
the  price  the  attacking  force  will  pay. 

I  do  not  know  how  many  U-boats  were  In 
that  attack.  The  official  figures  will  no  doubt 
be  given  out  In  time.  Our  moderate  estimators 
here  put  it  down  as  three,  with  one  transport 
ramming  and  sinking  one  U-boat.  Two  honest 
lads  of  one  of  our  own  forward  gun  crews  say 
that  our  ship  bumped  over  another.  They 
felt  the  bump.  Perhaps  they  did,  but  blue- 
jackets at  twenty  years  of  age  are  apt  to  be 
optimistic,  as  witness: 

The  day  after  that  U-boat  fight  the  skipper, 
first  officer,  chief  engineer,  and  myself  were 
trying  our  French  on  a  waiter  in  a  cafe  ashore, 
but  not  quite  putting  it  over;  we  had  to  re- 
sort to  a  little  English  to  get  action  for  one 
important  item  of  our  meal.  A  party  of 
American  bluejackets — gun  crews — ^were  at  an- 
other table.    They  heard   us   speak   English, 


THE  U-BOATS  APPEAR  57 

whereat  one  of  them  called  over:  "Say,  you 
guys  comprong  English  ?  Wee,  wee  ?  Then 
you  oughter  been  where  we  were  yesterday. 
Yuh'd  seen  something.  Fighting  U-boats  we 
were.  Comprong .?  U-boats — ^wee,  wee,  U-boats. 
Thirty-six  of  'em  came  after  us  an*  we  sunk 
twelve.  Whaddyer  know  about  that.?"  We 
did  not  know,  so  we  opened  up  a  bottle  of  the 
ordinary  red  wine  of  the  country,  price  deux 
francs,  and  drank  to  their  enthusiastic  health. 


CROSSING  THE  CHANNEL 

TO  get  out  of  France  after  getting  in,  a 
man  has  to  go  to  Paris,  see  the  prefect 
of  police,  various  consuls,  and  so  on. 
It  was  all  interesting — the  life  in  Paris — but  it 
had  nothing  to  do  with  U-boats.  I  had  to  go 
to  England,  and  to  make  England,  I  had  to 
go  to  Havre. 

And  I  was  in  Havre.  Looking  out  the  window 
at  a  roof  across  the  narrow  street  was  a  sign 
which  read  Hotel  of  the  Six  Allies.  The  Six 
looked  as  though  it  had  been  painted  over. 
The  head  waiter  told  me  later  that  it  had.  It 
had  begun  at  three,  then  it  became  four — five — 
now  six.  But  there  were  more  than  six  now — 
did  not  the  great  United  States  count?  Oh, 
yes,  truly  yes — but  the  paint  and  painters! 
They  were  growing  more  scarce.  The  war — 
yes.     Everything  was  the  war. 

The  head  waiter  was  a  little  old  fellow  with 
a  round  back,  a  quizzical  eye,  and  the  hair  of  a 
first  violin.  After  I  beat  my  way  by  main 
strength  through  three  table-d'hote  meals  with 

S8. 


CROSSING  THE  CHANNEL         59 

him  he  let  me  know  that  he  could  talk  English. 
Why  hadn't  he  told  me  so  before  ?  Oh  !  Did 
I  not  wish  to  practise  my  French  ?  So  many 
did,  and  if  they  made  him  understand,  the  tips 
were  sometimes  more  inspiring. 

The  steamer  for  England  had  been  scheduled 
to  leave  the  night  of  the  day  our  train  arrived, 
but  she  did  not  leave.  We  did  not  learn 
whether  it  was  the  full  moon  or  the  U-boats 
shifting  their  hunting-grounds  or  the  late  air- 
raids on  the  south  coast  of  England.  What- 
ever the  cause,  no  one  growled  much.  The 
steamship  people  and  the  government  were 
doing  their  best  with  a  difficult  service.  The 
delay  gave  us  another  day  to  look  the  port  over. 
I  had  been  there  years  before.  Then  it  was  all 
French;  now  it  seemed  to  be  mostly  British. 
The  streets,  the  shops,  the  cafes,  were  crowded 
with  English,  Canadian,  and  Australian  sol- 
diers. British  soldiers  were  running  the  tram- 
cars.  In  the  country  outside  was  a  large  Brit- 
ish camp.  The  French  owners  of  the  ships  and 
of  the  cafes  in  the  narrow  streets  near  the  jet- 
ties catered  especially  to  the  British  soldier  and 
sailor.  English  tobacco,  English  rosbif — they 
advertised  these  in  quaintly  worded  signs. 


6o  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

Ships  lay  between  the  jetties  and  the  break- 
water, coasting  and  deep-water  steamers,  and 
the  little  fishing-cutters  with  the  tanned  sails. 
There  was  a  fleet  (or  a  flock)  of  seaplanes  all 
ready  to  take  to  either  the  water  or  the  air. 
They  took  to  both  while  we  looked,  hurdling 
the  breakwater  from  the  basin  to  get  more 
quickly  to  some  smoke  on  the  horizon.  They 
were  brand-new  planes  all,  with  the  most 
beautiful  polished  maple  pontoons  and  bright 
varnish  over  paint  that  still  smelled  fresh. 

Soldiers  not  so  worn  and  weary  as  those  on 
the  hospital  veranda  came  down  to  the  jetty 
promenade.  Priests,  nursing  sisters,  other  sol- 
diers and  sailors  came  also.  What  interested 
them  most  was  the  sun  shining  on  the  bright 
new  wood  of  the  planes  flying  out  to  see  what 
the  smoke  meant.  It  was  a  ship  from  across 
the  ocean  somewhere,  and  the  planes  circled  it 
into  the  basin — one  more  ship  which  had  beat 
the  U-boat  game  and  brought  home  some- 
thing needed.  There  was  some  noise  along  the 
jetty  and  yet  more  noise  in  the  wide  and  nar- 
row streets  of  the  town — clanging  trams,  whip- 
cracking  fiacres,  yelling  newsboys,  honking 
taxis,   and   soldiers   and   sailors  tramping  the 


CROSSING  THE  CHANNEL         6i 

pavements.  Noise  enough,  and  of  the  kind 
befitting  a  Channel  port  in  war  time;  but  for  a 
time  at  least  we  heard  the  noise  let  down,  and 
the  bustle  softened. 

In  a  wide  street  of  shops  appeared  a  white- 
haired  priest  with  a  white  crucifix  held  high 
before  him.  Behind  him  was  another  priest 
reading  from  a  book  of  prayer.  Two  laymen 
came  next,  bearing  a  little  white-painted  table 
with  a  little  white  coffin — a  cheap  board  coffin 
— resting  on  it.  There  was  a  canopy  of  plain 
white  boards  over  the  little  coffin.  There  were 
a  few  white  blossoms  on  the  canopy  and  be- 
side the  coffin  a  few  lilies  of  the  valley — only  a 
few. 

Two  other  laymen  followed  the  coffin  bear- 
ers. All  the  men  were  bareheaded.  Three 
women — ^young  women  and  young  mothers  to 
look  at — followed  the  two  men.  One  of  the 
young  women  was  in  deep  black.  A  group  of 
little  girls  followed  the  young  woman.  Two 
very  old  women  came  last.  No  more  than  that, 
walking  through  a  crowded  street  at  two  o'clock 
of  a  bright  day ! 

It  was  on  us  almost  before  we  saw  it.  Men 
took  off  their  hats  as  it  passed;  women  blessed 


62  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

themselves.  Sometimes  men's  lips  murmured 
a  short  prayer;  always  the  women  did.  The 
soldiers  and  sailors,  when  they  were  French, 
saluted  nearly  always;  the  British  sometimes. 
The  officers,  if  anything,  saluted  more  pro- 
foundly than  the  enlisted  men,  and,  when  they 
did  not  stop  dead,  held  a  hand  to  their  caps 
for  eight  or  ten  paces  in  passing. 

Two  soldiers  were  talking  with  two  girls  of 
the  streets.  One  of  the  soldiers  took  off  his 
cap.  One  of  the  girls  stopped  talking  to  say  a 
little  word  of  prayer.  Both  soldiers  faced 
about,  and  all  four  gazed  in  silence  for  long 
after  the  little  cortege  had  passed  on.  Then 
the  first  soldier  put  on  his  cap,  all  faced  about, 
and  resumed  their  talk,  but  more  slowly  and 
not  quite  so  loudly  as  before. 

An  English  Tommy  was  driving  a  tram — a 
swearing  Tommy  that  you  could  hear  a  block 
away.  He  came  on  the  mourners  from  behind. 
He  was  in  a  hurry,  and  by  clanging  his  bell  he 
could  have  crowded  by.  But  he  held  the  tram 
in  check,  nursing  it  so  as  not  to  frighten  the 
two  old  women  in  the  rear — until  they  came  to 
a  wide  square.  Here  there  was  room.  He 
clanged  his  bell,  not  too  loudly,  turned  on  the 


CROSSING  THE  CHANNEL        63 

juice,  and  hurried  to  make  up  for  lost  time. 
Men  are  being  killed  by  the  million  over  here, 
and  other  men  who  have  been  there — these 
very  men  on  these  streets — will  tell  you  that 
they  hardly  turn  their  heads  to  see  one  more 
killed.     But  a  little  child  is  different. 

Our  steamer  was  to  sail  next  night — at  what 
hour  no  one  could  say,  but  it  was  well  to  be 
there  in  good  time,  we  were  told,  so  we  went 
with  the  hotel  bus.  A  little  porter  woman  was 
there  with  my  70-pound  bag  before  I  even  knew 
"things  were  ready";  and  she  said  she  did  not 
roll  it  down  the  five  flights  from  my  room. 
She  carried  it  every  stair  step  of  the  way. 
Her  husband  was  in  the  war,  and  she  had  five 
children  and  it  required  more  than  a  few  sous 
in  the  week  for  five  children,  the  eldest  four- 
teen.    I  agreed  that  it  did. 

Swinging  on  to  the  jetty,  we  had  to  take  no- 
tice of  a  shop  advertising  to  rent  life-saving 
apparatus  for  the  trip  across  the  Channel.  It 
was  fine — a  one-piece  suit  which  came  from  the 
toes  to  the  ears  and  a  hood  which  you  could 
turn  in  over  your  head  !  There  was  a  painting 
of  a  torpedoed  passenger  ship  going  up  in 
flames,  topside  and  the  hull  settling  down  into 


64  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

the  rolling  billows.  Men  and  women  were 
jumping  into  the  sea  and  drowning  in  agony. 
They  had  no  life-saving,  one-piece  suits.  But 
all  were  not  so  thoughtless.  There  were  others 
floating  along  high  out  of  water  with  the  most 
beatific  expressions  on  their  faces.  They  had 
been  thoughtful  enough  to  buy  one  of  the  patent 
one-piece  suits.  The  painting  was  in  colors, 
red  and  black  mostly. 

The  afternoon  had  closed  in  showers,  and 
when  we  made  the  steamer  landing  we  stood 
in  pools  of  water  in  the  hollows  of  the  worn 
stone  flags.  We  were  in  good  time,  but  a  hun- 
dred or  more  who  had  been  in  better  time  were 
already  inside  the  shed.  The  hold-overs  from 
three  days  were  there,  military  people  mostly. 
We  waited — and  waited — and  waited.  It  was 
the  eternal  passport  matter.  One  at  a  time 
they  had  to  pass  the  tribunal  inside.  A  pleas- 
ant-mannered young  EngHsh  soldier  stood  guard 
at  the  shed  door.  Every  half-hour  or  so,  at 
command  of  a  voice  from  the  inside,  he  would 
let  another  dozen  or  twenty  sHde  by.  When  he 
did  so,  those  of  us  in  the  rear  would  hurry  to 
fill  the  void,  picking  up  our  baggage  from  our 
feet  as  we  pushed  on.     I  had  hired  a  porter, 


CROSSING  THE  CHANNEL        65 

an  old  man,  to  look  after  my  70-pound  bag. 
He  stood  by  patiently  for  two  hours  or  so. 
Then,  without  warning,  he  ran  off  and  did  not 
come  back.  I  had  not  paid  him,  so  he  must 
have  grown  very  tired.  After  that,  whenever 
I  moved  forward,  I  had  to  pick  up  my  two  bags 
myself — the  other  weighed  40  pounds.  Some- 
times I  put  the  bags  into  a  pool  of  water — 
sometimes  I  put  my  feet. 

Not  every  one  had  to  wait.  An  officer  would 
be  passed  through  immediately,  which  did  not 
please  two  enlisted  men  near  me,  just  back  from 
what  they  called  rough  work  at  the  front.  The 
Httle  one,  called  Scotty,  had  a  fear  that  the 
boat  might  leave  before  he  could  get  there. 
He  wanted  to  "mak'  a  train  oot  o'  Lunnon" 
at  two  of  the  next  afternoon,  "mak'  a  nicht 
train  oot  o'  Glesgie"  (Glasgow)  and  surprise 
his  folk  by  walking  in  on  'em  "afore  brekkist." 
They  would  be  glad  to  see  him,  be  sure. 

"Almost  as  glad  to  see  you  come  as  they  was 
goin' .?"  asked  the  soldier  with  him,  and  then 
urged  Scotty  to  stop  over  in  London  for  a  bit 
o'  fun. 

"  I'll  not,"  said  Scotty.  "  I'll  mak'  the  trains 
as  I  said  an'  surprise  'em  afore  brekkist.     Be- 


66  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

sides,  there's  a  football  match  on  for  the  arter- 
noon  arter  to-morrer,  and  an  old  pal  o'  mine 
is  playin'  for'ard  for  oor  team.  But  let  'em 
allow  all  these  officers  aboord  first — 'ere's 
anither  ane — listen  tae  'im!" 

But  it  was  not  an  officer  this  time.  It  was 
a  voice  asking  if  any  privileges  were  accorded 
a  King's  messenger.  The  guard  at  the  door 
said  certainly,  but  where  was  he  ?  Everybody 
made  way  for  the  voice.  He  turned  out  to  be 
a  little  man  with  a  scraggy  beard  and  large 
round  spectacles.  The  guard  eyed  him  doubt- 
fully. The  King's  messenger  stood  on  his  toes 
and  whispered  up  into  the  guard's  ear. 

The  guard  looked  down  on  him.  "King's 
messenger!  Go  on  with  yer!"  He  shoved 
him  back. 

"Yes,  garn  with  yer !"  said  Scotty,  "but  he's 
gained  a  guid  half  oor  wi'  his  King's-messenger 
talk.  I  think  I'll  hae  tae  be  something  im- 
portant masel'  sune." 

The  soldier  with  Scotty  could  speak  French. 
He  spoke  it  to  a  pretty  young  French  girl  and 
her  mother  who  had  been  pressed  up  against 
them.  The  mother  had  a  new  hat  in  a  big 
paper  box.     Whenever  the  rush  threatened  to 


CROSSING  THE  CHANNEL        (,^ 

crush  the  hat-box,  she  would  hold  It  high  over 
her  head  till  she  could  hold  it  no  longer,  when 
she  let  it  get  crushed. 

Whenever  the  girl  spoke  to  the  other  soldier 
Scotty  would  want  to  know  what  she  said. 
"She's  sairtalnly  pretty.  What  did  she  say 
that  time,  Tid  ?" 

Tid  kept  to  himself  what  she  said.  "It's  a 
cut  above  the  hkes  of  you  we're  discussin'," 
said  Tid. 

"She'll  be  goln'  to  England  to  marry  an 
English  officer,"  said  Scotty. 

The  girl  whirled  on  him.  "No.  No  Eng- 
leesh  officier — a  French  officier!" 

"I  had  a  notion  you'd  spoil  it,"  said  Tid. 

"Ma  Gud,"  groaned  Scotty.  "I  wonder, 
Tid,  did  she  hear  a'  I  said  this  nicht  o'  her,  and 
ma  lips  no  two  feet  frae  her  ear!" 

The  night  was  growing  cooler.  The  girl's 
fur  neck-piece  slipped  down  from  her  shoulders. 
The  mother  had  passed  her  the  hat-box,  and 
the  girl  had  no  hand  free  for  the  neck-piece. 
Scotty  put  it  back  for  her.  She  thanked  him 
sweetly. 

"You're  no  mad  noo?"  said  Scotty.  "I'll 
tak'  a  steady  billet  tae  put  It  back."    He  took 


68  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

to  slyly  stroking  the  fur  piece  when  he  thought 
she  could  not  see  him. 

A  woman  lost  her  passport,  but  did  not  know 
it  until  she  was  about  to  be  passed  through  the 
door.  Then  she  shrieked.  She  came  back  in 
the  crowd  to  look  for  it.  She  had  been  stand- 
ing in  one  spot  for  an  hour — it  must  be  there. 
She  rushed  to  the  spot,  lit  a  match,  and  began 
to  look  under  her  feet.  A  man  lit  a  match  and 
began  to  look  under  his  feet.  Another  man  lit 
a  match  and  began  to  look  under  his  feet. 
We  all  Ht  matches  and  began  to  look  under  our 
feet. 

She  shrieked  again.  "Ma  Gud,  she's  a 
dyin'  woman!"  said  Scotty. 

She  was  not.  She  had  found  her  passport. 
The  business  of  waiting  was  resumed  by  the 
rest  of  us. 

The  little  cafes  along  the  water-front  were 
closing;  loads  of  soldiers  and  sailors  began  to 
flow  out  on  to  the  jetty.  One  began  to  sing, 
and  another;  others  to  whirl  along  in  grotesque 
dance  steps.  Two  began  to  talk  loudly.  They 
came  to  blows.  A  third  one  stepped  in  to  stop 
it,  whereupon  one  of  the  first  two  turned  on 
him  to  inquire  what  he  was  interfering  for. 


CROSSING  THE  CHANNEL        69 

"But  he's  a  friend  o'  mine,"  explained  the 
third  man. 

"Is  he  a  better  friend  o'  yours  than  o'  me? 
Answer  me  that.  Is  he  ?  Do  you  know  him 
longer  than  I  know  him  ?  No  ?  Then  mind 
your  own  and  do  not  be  interferin'."  The 
third  man  felt  properly  rebuked.  He  with- 
drew his  objections  and  the  other  two  resumed 
their  fight. 

We  were  inside  the  shed  at  last;  and  by  and 
by  I  came  before  a  man  in  a  little  office  inside 
the  shed.  He  was  a  Frenchman,  but  spoke 
good  English. 

"Your  passport,  please." 

I  produced  it.  He  took  a  look  and  passed 
it  back. 

"Any  gold  on  your  person  ?" 

"Thirty  dollars — American." 

"Hand    it    over,    please.    Wait.    Are    you 
American  ?" 
1  am. 

"In  that  case  keep  it.  That  is  all.  Pass 
out.     Next." 

Next  came  a  little  house  with  a  row  of  men 
sitting  at  a  long,  narrow  pine-board  table. 
The  first  had  a  quick  look  at  my  passport  and 


70  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

handed  it  on  to  a  man  who  sat  on  his  left  be- 
fore a  card  index  in  boxes.  That  one  dug  into 
his  boxes,  found  what  he  was  looking  for,  and 
slid  the  passport  along  to  the  next  on  his  left, 
who  slid  it  along  to  the  man  on  his  left,  and  he 
to  the  man  on  his  left,  and  he  to  the  last  one. 

You  chased  that  passport  down  the  line,  an- 
swering the  questions  which  each  one  put  in 
turn,  as  to  where  you  last  came  from,  where 
before  that,  and  before  that,  and  the  date,  your 
business,  where  you  were  going  in  England, 
why,  for  how  long,  and  where  you  would  stay. 
They  were  all  pleasantly  put,  but  you  had  the 
feeling  that  let  you  stumble  and  it  would  be 
God  help  you.  Each  asked  a  question  or  two 
that  nobody  else  had  thought  of.  The  last 
one  had  the  least  of  all  to  say.  He  probably 
thought  that  if,  after  all,  you  were  a  German 
spy,  you  had  earned  your  exemption.  He  only 
made  a  note  of  your  name,  handed  out  a  red 
card,  said  to  give  it  to  the  soldier  at  the  out- 
going door,  claim  your  baggage,  have  the  cus- 
toms inspector  pass  it,  and  go  aboard  the 
steamer  when  you  liked.  All  I  saw  Hked  to  go 
aboard  at  once. 

There  was  a  man  of  many  buttons  behind  a 


CROSSING  THE  CHANNEL        71 

shining  brass  grill  on  the  steamer — French,  ap- 
parently, but  also  speaking  plain  English.  I 
handed  in  my  ticket  and  asked  for  a  berth.  He 
was  snappy.     **Have  you  one  reserved  V 

"Why,  no.  When  I  bought  my  steamer 
ticket  I  was  told  that  there  would  be  no  need 
to  reserve  a  berth — there  would  be  plenty." 

"He  told  you  wrong.     There  are  no  berths." 

"But  is  he  not  your  agent — the  man  who 
sold  me  the  ticket  ?" 

"No." 

"But  you  accept  his  ticket?" 

"There  is  no  berth." 

"You  mean  that  I  pay  for  a  first-class  ticket 
on  your  steamer  and  then  have  to  walk  the 
deck?" 

"There  is  no  berth,  I  say."  He  talked  like 
a  machine-gun,  and  the  marble  Roman  gods 
were  not  more  impassive  as  he  turned  to  the 
next.  I  saluted  him.  You  just  have  to  honor 
a  man  who  knows  exactly  what  he  wants  to 
say  and  says  it,  which  did  not  prevent  me 
from  saying  over  the  next  one's  shoulder  what 
I  thought  of  his  manners,  the  ethics  of  his  com- 
pany, and  the  cheek  of  the  well-known  tourist 
agency  which  had  sold  me  the  ticket  in  Paris. 


72  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

But  it  did  not  get  me  anything.  He  went 
right  on  about  his  business  of  turning  more 
people  away. 

I  had  a  look  around.  The  smoking-room  air 
was  all  blue,  and  all  khaki  as  to  chairs  and  tables. 
Also  all  khaki  as  to  sleeping-quarters.  They 
had  been  campaigning  for  a  year  or  more  on 
the  western  line,  and  had  not  lost  any  time  here. 
And  every  blessed  one  of  them  had  a  whiskey 
and  soda  before  him.  They  were  talking,  but 
not  of  the  war.  They  were  going  home  for  a 
ten  days'  leave  after  a  year  at  the  front  and 
were  trying  to  forget  the  war.  There  was  also  a 
lounge-room  and  a  dining-saloon,  but  bunks 
there  were  also  already  commandeered  by  the 
strategic  military. 

It  could  be  a  worse  night  to  walk  the  deck. 
To  see  what  was  doing  a  man  would  want  to 
walk  the  deck  anyway. 

There  was  a  fine  bright  moon  mounting  above 
the  housetops  of  the  water-front  when  we  slid 
away  from  our  jetty  berth.  Slid  is  the  word. 
She  was  all  power,  this  Channel  steamer  of 
hardly  1,500  tons,  yet  with  two  great  smoke- 
stacks, three  propellers,  turbine-engines,  and 
burning  oil  for  fuel.     That  last  is  a  cheerful 


CROSSING  THE  CHANNEL        73 

item  when  you  have  to  walk  the  deck — it  means 
no  cinders  in  your  eyes. 

Fuss  ?  A  strange  word  to  her.  She  slipped 
like  running  oil  from  the  jetty,  past  the  break- 
water lights,  out  by  the  few  craft  anchored 
there — a  fast  one  for  sure.  To  get  a  line  on 
her  speed,  you  had  but  to  watch  the  shore 
marks  fall  away  or  the  water  slide  by  her  side 
as  out  into  the  Channel  she  went. 

People  without  berths,  but  with  a  chair  and 
a  rug  from  the  head  steward,  began  now  to 
tuck  away.  At  first  they  sat  mostly  by  the 
rail  watching  things.  Later  they  sought  snug- 
ger corners;  but  two  o'clock  of  a  September 
morning  in  50°  north  is  still  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  They  began  to  go  inside.  The  lights 
were  turned  off  inside  the  ship,  so  when  you 
walked  around  in  there  and  felt  your  foot  come 
down  on  something  soft,  you  needed  to  tread 
lightly — that  would  be  somebody's  neck  or 
stomach.  There  were  life-rafts  on  the  top 
deck,  of  a  homelike  sort  of  model,  in  the  form 
of  two  benches  with  the  air-tanks  under  the 
benches.  If  anything  happened  to  the  ship, 
you  could  go  floating  oflF  with  all  the  comforts 
of  a  seat  on  a  bench  in  the  park — if  too  many 


74  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

did  not  try  to  have  seats  at  the  same  time.  It 
was  a  fine  night  for  anybody  to  spot  us,  but 
just  as  fine  a  night  for  us  to  spot  them.  And 
a  ship  cutting  out  devious  courses  at  twenty- 
one  knots,  or  whatever  she  was  logging — she  is 
not  too  easy  to  hit.  To  lay  out  for  the  ten 
and  eleven  knot  cargo  boats  is  more  economical. 
Still,  who  knows  ?  We  paid  tribute  to  the 
U-boats  by  making  detours.  All  the  big  stars 
of  the  night  were  out,  and  by  them  we  could 
follow  her  shifting  courses.  But  no  harm;  she 
had  speed  enough  to  sail  the  Channel  sidewise 
and  still  bring  us  in  by  morning.  The  night 
grew  older  and  cooler.  The  last  of  the  people 
who  had  paid  toll  to  the  steward  for  a  chair 
and  rug  went  inside.  Only  one  couple  were 
left;  and  they  had  not  hired  any  chair.  He 
was  a  young  officer,  and  they  sat  under  his 
olive-drab  blanket,  on  a  life-raft  bench  athwart- 
ship.  From  there  without  moving  they  could 
get  sidewise  peeks  at  the  climbing  moon.  At 
five  o'clock  in  the  morning  they  were  still  sit- 
ting there,  heads  together  and  arms  across 
each  other's  shoulders. 

When  we  grew  tired  of  walking  we  sought 
little  anchorages.     By  two  o'clock  any  man  on 


CROSSING  THE  CHANNEL        75 

deck  could  have  had  his  pick  of  abandoned 
chairs,  but  they  were  not  good  chairs — the 
extension  part  too  short.  One  very  young 
Canadian  officer  opened  up  his  kit,  made  a 
bed  and  what  lee  he  could  of  the  forward 
smoke-stack.  A  round  smoke-stack  makes  a 
poor  lee,  but  once  tucked  in  he  stuck,  and  was 
there  in  the  morning  when  clear  light  came. 

The  moon  went  behind  clouds,  and  from  the 
clouds  little  cold  showers  of  rain  came  pepper- 
ing down.  Heavier  clouds  came,  and  heavier 
squalls  with  rain;  and  a  mean  little  cross  sea 
began  to  make.  Straight  ahead,  above  the 
Httle  seas  a  light  showed,  and  soon  another — 
this  a  powerful  one.  We  were  still  going  at  a 
great  clip.  We  might  know  it  anew  by  the 
way  that  big  light  jumped  forward  to  meet  us. 
Soon  we  had  it  off  our  bow,  abeam,  on  our 
quarter;  we  were  inshore. 

A  destroyer  came  out  to  meet  us  and  blinked 
a  message  from  screened  lights.  More  ships 
met  us.  We  passed  other  ships — all  kinds  of 
ships,  of  which  in  detail  a  man  must  not  write 
here. 

In  good  time  and  in  smooth  waters  we  made 
our  landing.     There  was  another  long  wait,  the 


76  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

same  passport  grilling,  but  in  a  different  way, 
and  then  a  fast  train  to  London.  A  taxi 
then,  a  room,  a  shave  and  bath,  clean  linen, 
and — oh  boy ! — the  roast  beef  of  old  England 
and  people  you  knew  to  talk  to  I 


THE  CENSORS 

BEFORE  a  visiting  correspondent  can  do 
anything  on  the  other  side  he  has  to  re- 
port to  a  censor  somewhere.  In  London 
the  Chief  Admiralty  Censor  was  a  retired  Royal 
Navy  captain  and  a  Sir  Knight,  but  not  wearing 
his  uniform  or  parading  his  knighthood.  He 
was  quartered  in  an  old  dark  building  where 
Nelson  used  to  hang  out  in  the  days  before  Tra- 
falgar.    There  was  a  sign  on  the  door: 

DON'T  KNOCK.    COME  IN 

He  was  a  good  sort,  with  not  a  sign  about 
him  of  that  swank  which  so  many  of  the  military 
caste  seem  to  think  it  necessary  to  adopt.  He 
was  perfectly  wilHng  to  pass  me  on  to  our  naval 
base  and  go  right  ahead  with  my  work;  but  he 
did  not  have  charge  of  the  naval  base.  There 
was  an  admiral  over  there — not  an  American 
admiral — who  had  full  charge  of  our  war-ships 
there.  Without  his  permission  not  one  of 
them  could  tie  up  to  a  mooring  in  the  harbor. 
I  would  have  to  get  his  permission  even  to 
77 


78  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

visit  the  base.  My  very  human  censor  in 
London  said  he  would  cable  to  him  and  let  me 
know  just  as  soon  as  word  came. 

Awaiting  the  pleasure  of  the  naval  base  dic- 
tator held  me  two  weeks  in  London.  While 
waiting  I  had  a  look  over  the  city.  It  was  dur- 
ing a  period  when  the  moon  was  ripe  for  air- 
raids. There  were  seven  of  them  in  nine  nights. 
My  business  in  Hfe  being  to  see  things  and  then 
to  write  about  them,  I  walked  the  streets  dur- 
ing two  of  them  and  viewed  some  of  the  others 
from  club  and  hotel  windows. 

The  underground  railway  stations  did  a  great 
business  while  the  raids  were  on;  also  bomb- 
proof basements.  In  a  newspaper  office,  where 
I  used  to  visit,  were  precise  directions  how  to 
get  to  their  bomb-proof  cellar.  And  be  sure  to 
take  the  right  one.  They  had  two  cellars,  but 
only  one  was  bomb-proof.  Shops  in  the  expen- 
sive shopping  districts  had  signs  up,  advertising 
their  bomb-proof  cellars  and  inviting  their  pa- 
trons to  make  use  of  them;  but  the  trouble  with 
the  shops  was  that  most  air-raids  took  place 
after  they  had  shut  up  for  the  day. 

There  was  a  local  regulation  which  said  that 
when  an  air-raid  was  on  any  person  at  all  might 


THE  CENSORS  79 

knock  at  the  door  of  any  house  he  pleased  and 
claim  admittance.  If  he  were  not  admitted  at 
once  he  could  call  a  policeman,  who  would  have 
to  see  that  he  was  admitted.  We  used  to  specu- 
late on  what  would  happen  if  some  hobo  knocked 
at  the  front  door  of  the  town  house  of  the  Duke 
of  Westminster,  say,  and  demanded  of  the  but- 
ler in  plush  knee-breeches  that  he  be  let  in. 

The  chief  defense  against  the  Goths  was  a 
barrage  of  guns  mounted  mostly  on  the  roofs  of 
buildings.  An  expected  air-raid  would  be  an- 
nounced by  policemen  running  through  the 
streets  on  bicycles,  on  their  chests  and  back  were 
signs:  AIR  RAID  ON.    They  also  blew  whistles. 

The  great  search-Hghts  would  sweep  the  skies, 
and  by  and  by  there  would  be  a  great  banging  of 
barrage  guns.  Bang,  bang,  bang — that  would 
be  the  defense  guns.  Boom  !  That  would  be  a 
bomb.  Bang,  bang,  bang,  and  Boo-oom !  The 
guns  fired  3-inch  shrapnel.  Three  miles  into 
the  air  the  shrapnel  shells  would  go!  And 
what  goes  up  has  to  come  down.  The  next 
thing  would  be  shrapnel  showering  into  the 
streets.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  would  rather 
take  my  chance  with  the  bombs  than  with  the 
shrapnel.     A  bomb  came  down,  exploded,  and 


8o  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

had  done  with  it;  but  the  shrapnel  fell  all 
over  the  place. 

You  could  see  the  shrapnel  shells  bursting 
high  in  the  air — a  beautiful  sight — twinkling 
like  big  yellow  stars,  and  then  fading  out. 
They  would  look  more  beautiful  if  only  the 
pieces  of  them  would  stay  up  there  after  they 
burst.  I  was  in  Oxford  Circus  one  night  when 
a  hatful  of  shrapnel  fell  about  20  feet  away. 
One  piece  was  about  5  inches  long.  Imagine 
that  falling  down  from  a  height  of  3  miles  and 
hitting  a  fellow  on  the  head.  It  would  go  clear 
on  down  through  to  your  toes.  Before  any 
American  city  is  raided  I  hope  some  chemist 
will  invent  a  barrage  shell  which  will  dissipate 
all  its  energy  and  substance  in  the  bursting. 
Surely  an  airplane  can  be  wrecked  by  concus- 
sion. 

An  Australian  soldier  and  a  girl  were  stand- 
ing in  a  doorway  near  me  watching  the  shells 
burst.  His  was  that  common  case — a  soldier 
in  London  on  leave,  speculating  on  where  the 
shrapnel  would  fall,  and  becoming  peeved  as  he 
thought  of  it.  "A  hell  of  a  place  for  a  man 
to  come  on  leave !  I  came  here  to  get  rest  and 
quiet,  and  I  run  into  this  gory  mess !" 


THE  CENSORS  8i 

While  waiting  the  permission  of  the  British 
authorities  I  learned  that  all  a  correspondent's 
troubles  do  not  come  from  foreign  censorship. 
An  American  newsman  had  cabled  over  some- 
thing which  did  not  please  one  of  our  admirals 
then  in  London.  Meeting  that  same  admiral, 
I  put  in  a  word  for  my  trip  to  the  naval  base, 
thinking  that  he  might  warm  up  and  hurry- 
things  along  for  me.  He  warmed  up,  but  on 
the  side  away  from  me.  He  recounted  the 
enormous  villainy  of  that  newsman,  and  in  con- 
clusion said:  "Perhaps,  after  all,  the  best  way 
to  do  is  not  to  allow  you  newspaper  men  to  send 
a  word  at  all!" 

Such  an  air  of  finality !  He  spoke  as  though 
he  owned  the  navy;  also  the  press. 

One  now  and  again  grows  up  like  that.  By 
taking  care  not  to  die,  and  in  the  absence  of 
plucking  boards,  they  rise  to  be  admirals. 
Then  side-boys,  the  bosun's  pipes,  the  13  guns 
coming  over  the  side — all  this  ritual  goes  to 
their  heads.  They  get  to  thinking  after  a 
while  that  the  whole  business  is  a  tribute  to 
their  genius,  or  valor,  or  something  or  other 
personal.  Perhaps  all  this  one  needed  was  a 
little  salve;  but  I  thought  it  up  to  some  writer 


82  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

to  fire  a  shot  across  his  bows.  So  I  came  back 
with:  "That's  all  very  well,  sir,  about  your 
not  allowing  a  word  to  be  sent,  but  there  may 
be  another  point  of  view.  There  are  110,000,- 
000  people  over  in  our  country,  and  some  of 
them  may  not  look  on  our  navy  as  the  sole 
property  of  its  officers.  They  may  want  to 
know  what  that  navy  of  theirs  is  doing  over 
here.  And  perhaps  no  harm  in  telling  them — 
or  some  day  they  may  decide  to  have  no  navy 
at  all." 

Imagination  was  not  his  long  suit,  so  he  had 
no  card  to  follow  with.     But  he  did  glare. 

After  two  weeks  of  waiting  I  got  word  from 
my  very  human  London  censor  that  I  might 
leave  for  the  naval  base.  I  left  from  Euston 
Station  during  an  air-raid.  The  station  had 
been  darkened  hours  earlier,  and  it  was  a  new 
kind  of  sport  going  around  that  big  black  place 
to  locate  the  cloak-room,  and  after  you  got  the 
cloak-room  to  identify  your  baggage  from  a 
big  tumbled  pile. 

I  lit  a  cigar,  and  as  I  did  a  policeman  jumped 
me  for  showing  a  light.  Stopping  to  light  it 
under  my  hat,  a  tall,  able  woman,  dragging  a 
trunk  by  the  strap,  bowled  into  me.     While  we 


THE  CENSORS  83 

were  in  our  compartments,  the  train  all  made 
up,  there  came  a  banging  of  barrage  guns — 
bang,  bang,  bang — ^with  now  and  then  the 
boo-oom !  of  a  bomb. 

While  we  were  waiting  there  we  heard  the 
crash  of  shrapnel  coming  through  the  glass  roof. 
By  and  by  another  bunch  of  shrapnel  fell  with 
a  fine  ringing  of  metal  on  the  concrete  platform 
alongside  the  train.  No  harm  done.  The 
raiders  passed,  the  banging  and  the  booming 
stopped;  but  there  was  then  no  driver  and 
stoker  for  the  train.  They  had  gone  with  the 
second  load  of  shrapnel,  and  we  had  to  wait 
two  hours  while  they  dug  up  a  new  crew. 

After  three  and  a  half  hours  of  deck-pacing 
on  the  steamer,  and  twenty-two  hours  of  sitting 
up  straight  in  third-class  wooden  seats,  I  made 
the  naval  base;  and  late  at  night  though  it 
was,  there  was  a  British  naval  officer  at  the 
hotel  to  let  me  know  I  was  to  report  next 
morning  to  the  British  admiral  in  charge. 

This  admiral  had  a  reputation  in  London 
for  having  no  use  for  newspaper  men.  When 
this  stafF-ofiicer  asked  me  if  I  had  heard  of  his 
admiral  before,  I  told  him  what  I  heard  in 
London.     "He  eats  'em  alive,"  I  was  told  by 


84  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

a  big  London  journalist,  and  I  repeated  that 
now,  of  course  without  naming  the  journalist. 

"And  what  do  you  think  of  that?"  asked 
this  stafF-officer. 

"If  he  tries  to  eat  me  alive  I  hope  he  chokes," 
I  answered  to  that.  I  figured  he  would  tell 
his  chief  that,  but  there  had  been  so  much 
boot-licking  done  by  a  couple  of  writers  over 
there  that,  for  the  honor  of  the  craft,  I  thought 
somebody  ought  to  have  a  wallop  at  these 
press  crushers  once  in  a  while. 

This  admiral  is  worth  a  paragraph,  because 
he  was  a  type.  He  was  a  capable  man  up  to 
his  limitations;  a  good  executive,  a  devotee  to 
duty;  but  he  should  have  lived  before  print- 
ing-presses were  invented.  Also  he,  too,  lacked 
imagination. 

He  was  a  man  who  acted  as  if  priding  him- 
self on  his  brusqueness  of  language.  He  sat  at 
his  flat  desk  like  a  pagan  image,  never  looked 
up,  never  said  ay,  no,  or  go  to  the  devil  when 
I  stepped  in  and  wished  him  "Good  morning!" 

I  told  him  what  I  wanted.  I  wished  to 
cruise  with  the  American  destroyers  in  their 
U-boat  operations. 

His  answer  was  a  No !    Bing !    No,  sir ! 


THE  CENSORS  85 

"Whoops!"  I  said  to  myself.  "I've  come 
more  than  4,000  miles,  with  a  fine  expense  ac- 
count to  Collier's,  and  I'm  turned  down  before 
I  get  going. 

I  spread  before  him  my  credentials — from 
the  department  and  elsewhere.  I  spread  be- 
fore him  a  letter  from  Colonel  Roosevelt,  the 
same  in  his  own  handwriting.  In  France  I 
could  have  lost  my  passport  and  yet  got  along 
on  that  letter.  Batteries  of  inspectors  used  to 
sit  up  and  come  to  life  at  the  sight  of  a  letter 
in  the  colonel's  own  handwriting. 

This  man  did  not  turn  his  head  to  look  at 
what  I  might  have.  All  the  credentials  in  the 
world  were  going  to  have  no  influence  with 
him.  He  repeated  his  No,  putting  about  sev- 
enteen n's  in  the  No ! 

Then,  mildly,  I  told  him  that  I  thought  I 
ought  to  have  something  more  than  a  No; 
that  I  should  have  a  reason  to  go  with  the  No. 
He  intimated  that  he  didn't  have  to  give  rea- 
sons unless  he  wished  to. 

I  asked  him  why  he  should  not  wish  to  ? 
Was  it  not  right  and  fair  that  he  should  give 
a  reason  ?  I  had  come  more  than  4,000  miles 
at  great  expense  to  Collier's,  for  one  thing.    For 


86  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

another — and  this  more  important — there  was 
an  anxiety  among  Americans  to  know  some- 
thing of  the  doings  of  our  httle  destroyer  flo- 
tilla. They  had  sailed  out  into  the  East,  been 
swallowed  up  in  the  mists  of  the  Atlantic — 
that  was  the  last  we  had  seen  of  them.  They 
were  the  first  of  our  forces  to  come  in  contact 
with  the  enemy.  Were  they  doing  good  work 
over  here,  or  were  they  tied  up  to  a  dock  in 
some  port  and  their  officers  and  crews  roistering 
ashore  I 

Still  he  said  No. 

Then  I  went  on  to  tell  him  what  I  had  told 
our  own  archaic  type  of  admiral  in  London — 
with  additions:  that  it  was  possible  that  we 
had  in  the  United  States  a  different  idea  of  the 
navy  from  what  the  British  pubHc  held;  that 
in  our  own  country  a  lot  of  people  held  the  no- 
tion that  the  navy  was  not  the  property  of 
the  officers,  not  quite  so  much  as  it  was  the 
property  of  the  people;  and  that  holding  that 
view,  these  same  people  thought  themselves 
entitled  to  know  what  that  navy  was  doing  to 
back  their  faith  in  it.  And  perhaps  it  was  not 
the  worst  policy  in  the  world  to  tell  them  what 
that  navy  was  doing. 


THE  CENSORS  87 

Still  he  said  No. 

But  why  ? 

Well,  for  one  thing  (he  was  disintegrating  a 
little),  in  the  British  service  they  did  not  allow 
civilians  of  any  kind  to  go  to  sea  with  their 
ships  in  war  time.  That  further — they  allowed 
no  reports  of  their  work  at  sea  to  appear  in  the 
press. 

I  pointed  out  that  reports  of  fine  deeds  were, 
nevertheless,  appearing  in  the  press;  that  from 
the  London  dailies  of  the  week  past  I  had  made 
clippings  of  such,  and  if  he  cared  to  see  them 
I  would  show  them  to  him. 

"But  we  allow  no  civilians  to  go  cruising 
with  ships  at  sea  in  war  time.  And  I  will  not 
establish  a  precedent  now." 

It  was  the  old  fetich — precedent.  I  thought 
of  judges  who  used  to  hang  men  on  precedent. 
He  surely  had  what  is  called  the  mediaeval 
mind,  with  apologies  to  that  same  mediaeval 
age. 

I  pointed  out  that  conditions  in  our  country 
and  his  were  not  the  same.  That  there  were 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  officers  and  men  in 
the  British  navy;  that  those  officers  and  men 
were  regularly  ashore  on  liberty  or  leave;  that 


88  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

they  gossiped,  and  that  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  officers  and  men  gossiping  could  pass  the 
word  pretty  far,  especially  in  a  country  where 
there  was  not  a  single  little  hamlet  more  than 
40  miles  from  tide-water.  With  us  it  was  dif- 
ferent. Our  nearest  Atlantic  port  was  3,000 
miles  from  this  very  naval  base;  and  3,000  miles 
farther  to  the  Pacific  coast,  with  no  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  men  on  liberty  ashore.  If  men 
like  myself  were  not  allowed  to  tell  them  some- 
thing, how  were  they  ever  to  learn  what  was 
doing  ? 

I  wound  up  by  telling  him  he  was  an  auto- 
crat; which  disturbed  his  graven  serenity. 
Autocrat  and  autocracy  were  not  pleasant- 
sounding  words  just  then.  He  snapped  his 
head  up,  and  for  the  first  time  looked  as  if  he 
might  be  human. 

"We  have  to  be  autocratic  in  war  time,"  he 
barked. 

"Not  in  everything,"  I  barked  back. 

Then,  and  not  till  then,  did  he  soften.  We 
had  a  little  more  conversation,  and  then  he 
said  he  wanted  that  night  to  think  over  the 
unprecedented  request.  He  would  let  me  know 
next  day. 


THE  CENSORS  89 

A  perfect  bigot;  and  yet  there  were  worse 
than  he.  He  dared  to  say  what  he  thought 
about  the  rights  of  his  station.  Some  of  his 
judgments  may  have  been  childish,  but  his  con- 
victions were  deep  and  honest.  I  respected  him, 
and  later  came  to  have  almost  a  Hking  for  him. 

I  have  expended  many  paragraphs  in  telHng 
of  this  interview,  but  it  is  meant  to  be  more 
than  a  statement  of  one  American  correspon- 
dent. It  is  meant  to  explain  a  point  of  view 
which  Americans  may  find  it  hard  work  to 
understand.  That  admiral  in  charge  of  our 
naval  base  can  be  multiplied  all  the  world  over. 
We  have  them  in  our  own  departments. 

While  waiting  the  admiral's  pleasure  I  had 
a  look  at  the  port.  A  fine  harbor,  a  beautiful 
harbor,  but  disfigured  now  by  big,  ugly  war- 
buildings.  The  houses  of  the  port  set  mostly 
up  on  terraces.  There  were  several  streets, 
but  only  one  real  one  in  the  place,  and  that 
ran  along  the  waterside.  All  the  pubs  of  the 
port  were  naturally  located  on  this  waterside 
street,  and  so  no  tired  seafarer  had  to  walk  far 
to  get  a  drink.  Not  many  of  our  fellows  were 
to  be  seen  on  the  streets  in  daylight;  but  at 
night  they  were  plentiful.     A  couple  of  movie 


90  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

theatres  took  care  of  about  three  hundred  of 
them;  the  rest  walked  the  waterside  street. 
There  was  a  port  order  there  that  no  sailor  of 
ours  could  stay  in  a  pub  after  eight  in  the 
evening,  so  at  one  minute  past  eight  that  water- 
side street  looked  like  a  naval  parade.  For 
the  rest  the  port  offered  little  or  nothing  to 
tempt  a  man.  It  was  as  rainy  a  place  as  ever 
I  was  in,  and  the  back  streets  were  crowded 
with  children  playing.  Barefooted,  healthy 
children !  If  they  had  not  been  healthy  the 
weather  would  surely  have  killed  them  off.  It 
was  a  most  moral  port,  too;  too  moral  for  some 
people,  who  thought  to  put  a  little  life  into  the 
place  by  making  nightly  calls  there,  and  made 
the  nightly  calls  till  a  local  clergyman  protested 
from  the  altar,  whereupon  some  muscular  young 
Christians  ran  the  visitors  back  aboard  their 
train  and  out  of  the  port's  history. 

Next  day  the  admiral  gave  me  permission  to 
make  a  cruise  with  our  destroyers.  He  seemed 
to  be  giving  it  in  the  same  stubborn  fashion  that 
he  had  at  first  refused  it — as  though  he  saw  his 
duty  in  so  doing.  I  was  told  that  he  said  he 
did  not  think  much  of  my  manners;  which,  of 
course,  worried  me. 


THE  CENSORS  91 

I  knew  quite  a  few  officers  in  the  navy  who 
were  commanding  destroyers  over  there.  Any 
one  of  them,  known  or  unknown  to  me,  was 
good  enough  for  me  as  a  skipper.  No  man  not 
ready  to  take  a  chance  puts  in  for  command  of 
a  destroyer  over  there;  and  no  man  not  fit  is 
given  a  command.  But  I  took  passage  with 
one  that  I  had  cruised  with  before — the  alert, 
resourceful  kind  with  plenty  of  nerve.  If  any- 
thing should  happen,  I  knew  he  would  be  there 
with  all  his  crew  and  his  ship  had. 

What  happened  while  with  him  and  at  the 
naval  base  I  have  tried  to  tell  as  separate 
incidents  when  I  can,  in  the  chapters  which 
follow. 


ONE  THEY  DIDN'T  GET 

WE  were  one  of  a  group  of  American 
destroyers  convoying  a  fleet  of  in- 
bound   British    merchant    steamers. 
The  messenger  handed  a  radio  in  to  the  bridge. 

"We  are  being  shelled,"  said  the  radio; 
latitude  and  longitude  followed,  as  did  the 
name  of  the  ship,  /.  L.  Luckenhach.  One  of 
us  knew  her;  an  American  ship  of  6,cxx)  tons 
or  so. 

Another  radio  came:  "Shell  burst  in  engine- 
room.  Engineer  crippled."  SOS  signals 
were  no  rare  thing  in  those  waters,  but  even 
so  they  were  never  passed  up  as  lacking  in- 
terest; the  skipper  waited  for  action.  Pretty 
soon  it  came,  a  signal  from  the  senior  officer  of 
our  group.  The  352 — let  us  give  that  as  the 
number  of  our  ship — was  to  proceed  at  once 
to  the  assistance  of  the  Luckenhach. 

The  skipper's  first  act  was  to  shake  up  the 
second  watch-officer,  who  also  happened  to  be 
acting  as  chief  engineer  of  the  ship,  and  to 
pass  him  the  word  to  speed  the  ship  up  to 

92 


ONE  THEY  DIDN'T  GET         93 

twenty-five  knots.  We  were  steaming  at  the 
head  of  the  convoy  column  at  eighteen  knots 
at  the  time.  The  first  watch-officer,  having 
finished  his  breakfast  and  a  morning  watch, 
was  just  then  taking  a  Httle  nap  on  the  port 
ward-room  transom  with  his  clothes  and  sea- 
boots  still  on.  The  active  messenger  shook 
him  up  too.  The  two  officers  made  the  deck 
together,  one  buttoning  his  blouse  over  a  heavy 
sweater,  the  other  a  sheepskin  coat  over  his 
blouse. 

Word  was  sent  to  the  Luckenhach  that  we 
were  on  the  way.  Within  three  minutes  the 
radio  came  back:  "Our  steam  is  cut  off.  How 
soon  can  you  get  here  ?" 

Up  through  the  speaking-tube  came  a  voice 
just  then  to  say  that  we  were  making  twenty- 
five  knots.  At  the  same  moment  our  executive 
officer,  who  also  happened  to  be  the  navigator, 
handed  the  skipper  a  slip  of  paper  with  the 
course  and  distance  to  the  Luckenbachy  saying: 
"That  was  at  nine-fifteen." 

It  was  then  nine-seventeen.  Down  the  tube 
to  the  engine-room  went  the  order  to  make 
what  speed  she  could.  Also  the  skipper  said: 
"  She  ought  to  be  tearing  off  twenty-eight  soon 


94  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

as  she  warms  up.  And  she's  how  far  now  ? 
Eighty-two  miles?  Send  this  radio:  *  Stick  to 
it — will  be  with  you  within  three  hours."* 

By  this  time  all  hands  had  an  idea  of  what 
was  doing  and  all  began  to  brighten  up.  Men 
off  watch,  supposed  to  be  asleep  in  their  cots 
below,  began  to  stroll  up  and  have  a  look  around 
decks.  Some  lingered  near  the  wireless  door, 
and  every  time  the  messenger  passed  they  sort 
of  stuck  their  ears  up  at  him.  He  was  a  long- 
legged  lad  in  rubber  boots  who  took  the  deck 
in  big  strides.  His  lips  never  opened,  but  his 
eyes  talked.  The  men  turned  from  him  with 
pleased  expressions  on  their  faces. 

There  was  a  little  steel  shelter  built  on  to  the 
chart  house  to  port.  It  was  for  the  protection 
of  the  forward  gun  crew,  who  had  to  be  ready 
for  action  at  any  minute.  Men  standing  by 
for  action  and  not  getting  it  legitimately,  try 
to  get  it  in  some  other  way.  So  they  used  to 
burn  up  their  spare  energy  in  arguing.  It  did 
not  matter  what  the  argument  was  about — the 
President,  Roosevelt,  the  Kaiser,  the  world 
series — any  subject  would  do  so  long  as  it 
would  grow  into  an  argument.  The  rest  of  the 
crew   could   hear   them — threatening  to   bust 


ONE  THEY  DIDN'T  GET  95 

each  other's  eyes  out — clear  to  the  skid  deck 
sometimes.  But  now  all  quiet  here,  and  soon 
they  were  edging  out  of  their  igloo  and  calling 
down  to  the  fellows  on  the  main  deck:  "That 
right  about  a  ship  being  shelled  by  a  sub  ?  Yes. 
Well!"  They  went  down  to  their  shelter 
smiling  at  one  another. 

Ship's  cooks,  who  rarely  wander  far  from  their 
cosey  galley  stoves,  began  to  show  on  deck; 
ward-room  stewards  came  out  on  deck;  a  gang 
black-painting  a  tank  hatch — they  all  slipped 
over  to  the  rail  and,  leaning  as  far  out  as  they 
could  and  not  fall  overboard,  had  long  looks 
ahead.  And  then  they  all  turned  to  see  what 
352's  smoke-stacks  were  doing.  There  was 
great  hope  there. 

The  black  smoke  was  getting  blacker  and 
heavier.  They  were  sure  feeding  the  oil  to  her. 
The  chief  came  up  the  engine-room  ladder. 
An  old  petty  officer  waylaid  him.  Doing  well, 
was  she,  sir  ? — She  was.  Hem !  About  how 
well,  sir  ? — Damn'  well.  She  was  kicking  out 
twenty-eight — twenty-eight  good — and  picking 

up. 

Twenty-eight  and  picking  up  ?  And  the  best 
she  showed  in  her  builders'  trial  was  twenty- 


96  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

nine-one !  What  d'y'  know  about  her  ?  Some 
little  old  packet,  hah  ? 

It  was  a  fine  day,  the  one  fine  day  of  the  trip, 
a  rarely  fine  day  for  this  part  of  the  northern 
ocean  at  this  time  of  year.  It  was  cloudy,  but 
it  was  calm.  There  was  a  long,  easy  swell  on, 
but  no  sea  to  make  her  dive  or  pitch.  The 
swell,  when  she  got  going  in  good  shape,  set 
her  to  swinging  a  little,  but  that  did  not 
hurt.  A  destroyer  just  naturally  likes  to  swing 
a  little. 

Swinging  along  she  went,  rolling  one  rail 
down  and  then  the  other,  but  not  making  it 
hard  to  stand  almost  anywhere  around  deck, 
except  that  when  you  went  aft  there  was  a 
drive  of  air  that  Hfted  you  maybe  a  little  faster 
than  you  started  out  to  go.  Swinging  along 
she  went,  a  long,  easy  swing,  carrying  a  long 
white  swash  to  either  side  of  her,  vibrating  a 
thousand  to  the  minute  on  her  fantail,  stream- 
ing out  a  long  white  and  pale-blue  wake  for 
as  far  as  we  could  see,  and  just  clear  of  her 
tafFrail  piling  up  the  finest  little  hill  of  clear 
white  boiling  water. 

Twenty-nine,  they  say,  she  was  making,  and 
still  picking  up.     What !    Thirty }    And  a  little 


ONE  THEY  DIDN'T  GET  97 

more  left  in  her  ?  What  d'y'  know — some  little 
baby,  hah  ? 

Another  radio  came  to  the  bridge:  "A  shell 
below  our  water-line.  Settling,  but  still  afloat 
and  still  fighting.'* 

"Good  work.  Stick  to  it,"  they  said  on  the 
bridge,  and  wondered  whether  it  was  the  skip- 
per or  the  radio  man  who  was  framing  the  mes- 
sages. He  had  the  dramatic  instinct,  whoever 
he  was. 

Perhaps  twenty  minutes  later  came:  "Water 
in  our  engine-room." 

And  then:  "Fire  in  our  forehold,  but  will 
not  surrender.     Look  for  our  boats." 

And:  "They  are  now  shooting  at  our  an- 
tennae." 

Radios  to  the  bridge  are  not  posted  up  for 
the  crew  to  gossip  over,  but  there  was  no  keep- 
ing that  last  one  under  cover. 

"Shelling  their  attenay  ?  Well,  the  morti- 
fying dogs !  Whatever  you  do,  don't  let  'em 
get  your  attenay,  old  bucket." 

Our  thirty-knot  clip  was  eating  up  the  road. 
We  were  getting  near  the  spot.  The  canvas 
caps  came  off'  the  guns,  and  the  gun  crews  were 
told  to  load  and  stand  by.     A  chief  gunner's 


98  THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

mate  was  told  to  make  ready  his  torpedo-tubes. 
He  was  a  famous  torpedo-man.  He  would  stay- 
up  all  night  with  an  ailing  gyro  or  hydrostatic 
piston  and  not  even  ask  to  sleep  in  next  morn- 
ing for  a  reward,  and  he  had  a  record  of  making 
nothing  but  hits  at  torpedo-practice.  But  he 
had  been  glum  all  the  trip.  He  had  stayed 
past  the  legal  hour  on  liberty  the  last  time  in, 
and  the  shore  patrol  had  come  along  and  scooped 
him  up.  A  court-martial  was  coming  to  him 
and  so  he  had  been  glum;  but  not  now.  He 
went  around  decks  smiling,  with  a  little  steel 
thing  that  looked  like  a  wrist-bag  but  wasn't. 
It  held  the  keys  to  the  magazines. 

Pretty  soon  he  had  torpedo-tubes  swinging 
inboard  and  outboard,  and  between  every  pair 
of  tubes  a  man  sitting  up  in  an  iron  seat  that 
looked  like  the  kind  that  goes  with  a  McCor- 
mick  reaper,  which  all  helped  the  gunner's 
mate  to  feel  better.  He  stopped  ten  seconds 
to  tell  the  story  of  the  new  gun-crew  man  who 
was  sent  up  the  yard  to  the  storekeeper  for  a 
pair  of  spurs  to  ride  the  torpedo-tubes  with. 

There  were  four  guns,  one  forward,  one  aft, 
and  two  in  the  waist.  They  had  been  slushed 
down  with  vaseline  to  keep  the  salt-water  rust 


ONE  THEY  DIDN'T  GET  99 

off;  now  they  were  swabbing  the  grease  off. 
Grease  on  the  outside  of  a  gun  does  not  affect 
the  shooting  of  the  inside,  but  a  gun  ought 
naturally  to  look  slick  going  into  action. 

Trainers  and  pointers  stood  beside  their 
loaded  guns,  and  other  members  of  the  gun 
crew  held  up  shells,  the  noses  of  the  shells 
stuck  into  the  deck  mat  and  the  butts  resting 
against  the  young  chests  of  the  gun  crews  as 
they  stood  in  line.  There  was  a  nineteen-year- 
old  lad  who,  when  I  knew  him  two  years  before, 
was  doing  boy's  work  in  the  Collier  bookbindery. 
Now  he  was  a  gun-captain  standing  handy  to 
his  little  pet  and  trying  not  to  look  too  proud 
when  he  peeked  up  toward  where  I  was. 

The  foretop  reported  smoke  on  the  horizon 
ahead.  That  would  be  on  the  Luckenhach. 
And  where  she  was  the  U-boat  was.  The 
forward  gun  was  trained  a  point  to  right  of  the 
smoke. 

One  senior  watch-officer,  now  in  the  foretop, 
called  down  that  he  could  now  see  the  ship. 
Smoke  was  coming  out  of  her  hull.  Soon  he 
reported  shells  splashing  alongside  of  her. 
Those  would  be  from  the  U-boat.  Soon  we 
all  could  see  the  ship  from  the  bridge. 


loo        THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

The  foretop  then  reported  the  U-boat. 
She  was  almost  dead  ahead.  She  could  not  be 
seen  from  the  bridge,  but,  directed  by  the  fore- 
top,  the  gun  was  trained  on  the  horizon  dead 
ahead;  ii,ooo  yards  was  the  range.  The  gun 
was  one  of  the  latest  type — only  a  4-inch — 
but  a  great  little  gun  just  the  same. 

"Train  and  fire,"  said  the  skipper.  Bo-o-m ! 
it  went,  flame  and  smoke.  We  could  not  see 
the  splash  from  the  bridge,  nor  could  they  in 
the  foretop.  It  probably  dropped  beyond  the 
submarine,  which  soon  we  could  see — a  pretty 
big  fellow  she  looked  with  two  guns.  She  had 
been  shelling  the  ship  even  while  we  were  run- 
ning up,  and  as  our  first  shot  boomed  out  she 
let  go  another  shell.  We  expected  her  to  send 
a  couple  our  way — she  probably  carried  bigger 
guns  than  we  did — but  she  did  not;  she  let  go 
another  at  the  steamer.  "Maybe  at  the  an- 
tennae," said  a  chief  quartermaster  on  the 
bridge. 

We  shortened  our  range.  The  gun  was 
trained  and  ready  for  firing  when  a  sea  rolled 
up  on  us.  The  ocean  was  smooth  enough,  but 
the  swell  was  still  on — a  long  swell  of  the  kind 
that  does  not  sputter,  but  walk  right  up  and 


ONE  THEY  DIDNT  GET        loi 

announce  their  arrival  by  arriving.  This  long 
blue  swell  rolled  up  to  our  bow. 

We  were  doing  thirty  knots  and  at  thirty 
knots  a  little  ship  doesn't  need  a  masthead 
sea  to  get  action.  We  went  into  it  head  first. 
It  came  right  on  over  our  bow,  over  our  foc'sle 
head,  over  the  forward  gun.  The  shield  to  the 
forward  gun  stood  probably  six  feet  above  the 
foc'sle  deck.  That  wave  rolled  right  over  the 
gun-shield. 

There  was  a  C.  P.  O.  standing  quite  close  to 
the  shield.  He  grabbed  a  vertical  rod  on  the 
outside  of  the  shield,  and  just  managed  to  hook 
in  the  fingers  of  one  hand.  The  sea,  all  white 
and  solid,  rolled  over  the  gun  and  the  shield. 
The  C.  P.  O.  was  swept  off  his  feet,  but  he  was 
a  stubborn  one  and  hung  on.  Behind  him  was 
the  officer  in  charge  of  the  firing.  When  he 
saw  that  sea  rolling  up  there  was  nothing  near 
but  the  C.  P.  0.,  so  he  grabbed  the  C.  P.  O. 
with  both  hands  around  the  waist.  He  too 
was  swept  off  his  feet,  but  he  hung  on — to  the 
C.  P.  O.  They  both  floated  flat  out  on  the 
white  roller,  and  the  white  roller  went  smash-o ! 
up  against  the  chart  house. 

The  chart  house  was  just  under  the  bridge, 


102         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

and  the  glass  windows  had  been  taken  out  from 
the  bridge  railing  so  that  they  would  not  be 
smashed  by  the  concussion  of  the  forward  gun. 
We  were  leaning  out  of  these  open  spaces,  just 
getting  ready  to  laugh  at  the  people  below 
when,  swabbo !  up  the  side  of  the  chart  house 
and  through  the  open  spaces  and  into  our  open 
mouths  came  the  wash  of  the  sea. 

Another  wave  followed  that  one,  but  not 
quite  so  high.  As  soon  as  it  passed  the  forward 
gun  was  trained  and  fired.  We  had  been 
making  great  leaps  ahead  all  this  time — the 
range  now  was  under  9,000  yards.  The  fore- 
top  reported  it  short. 

The  U-boat  was  still  there.  We  still  ex- 
pected her  to  send  one  our  way.  But  nothing 
doing  for  us.  She  sent  another  shell  toward 
the  steamer.  The  steamer  had  quit  firing. 
No  use.  The  U-boat  had  simply  taken  posi- 
tion beyond  range  of  the  steamer's  guns  and 
leisurely  as  she  pleased  was  shelling  her.  Our 
third  shell  landed  close  to  the  sub.  And  then 
down  she  went  and  wasted  no  time  at  it.  Be- 
fore we  could  train  and  fire  again  she  was  gone. 

The  sub,  as  we  learned  later,  had  landed 
fifteen  shells  into  the  steamer  and  wounded 


ONE  THEY  DIDN'T  GET        103 

nine  of  her  people,  of  whom  three  were  of  the 
bluejacket  gun  crew. 

One  young  bluejacket  had  been  hit  twice. 
He  was  carrying  a  shell  to  the  gun  when  he 
caught  the  second  one — a  piece  of  flying  shell 
in  his  shoulder.  He  laid  his  own  shell  on  the 
deck  to  see  how  about  it,  and  got  hit  again; 
this  time  in  what  our  navy  calls  the  stern  sheets. 
That  made  him  mad.  He  shook  his  fist  toward 
the  sub.  "No  damn'  German's  going  to  hit 
me  three  times  and  get  away  with  it."  He 
grabbed  his  shell  off  the  deck  and  slammed  it 
into  the  gun-breech.  "Hand  it  to  'em,  Joe!" 
he  yelled  to  the  gun-pointer.  Joe  did  his  best, 
but  he  didn't  have  the  gun — the  shot  splashed 
where  most  of  them  had,  about  half  a  mile  short 
of  the  sub. 

Still  pouring  the  black  smoke  out  of  our  fun- 
nels, we  leaped  toward  the  Luckenhach  and 
hailed  her  through  the  megaphone  when  we 
breasted  her.  She  hailed  back  that  she  had 
water  in  her  afterhold  and  fire  in  her  forehold, 
and  gave  us  the  number  of  her  wounded.  Two 
of  the  three  wounded  bluejackets  were  injured 
seriously.  We  could  see  them  stretched  out 
under  the  gun. 


104        THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

We  were  steaming  around  the  Luckenhach  at 
twenty  knots  while  we  were  haihng:  this  in 
case  the  sub  took  it  in  her  head  to  pop  up 
again  and  catch  us  slowed  down.  We  did  slow 
down  and  stop  when  it  came  time  to  clear  away 
a  whaleboat  and  send  it  over  to  the  steamer 
with  our  senior  watch-officer  and  the  surgeon, 
with  the  needful  surgical  supplies. 

We  continued  to  steam  circles  around  the 
steamer  all  the  time  they  were  aboard,  with 
our  lookouts  keeping  eyes  skinned  for  the 
U-boat.  By  her  manner  of  shelling  the  steamer 
after  he  had  opened  fire  our  skipper  judged 
she  was  a  tough  one.  She  did  show  once  while 
we  were  circling  the  Luckenhach.  Her  periscope 
popped  up  about  a  mile  abeam  of  us.  It  may 
have  popped  up  again — it  was  getting  to  be  a 
nice  little  choppy  sea  good  for  sub  work  and 
no  saying  that  it  was  not — but  we  only  sighted 
it  once,  and  then  it  did  not  Hnger. 

The  sea  was  growing  lumpy  when  the  whale- 
boat  came  bouncing  back  with  our  senior  offi- 
cer. It  was  right  about  the  Luckenhach  having 
nine  injured,  but  all  would  get  well.  The  doctor 
was  looking  after  them.  She  was  a  cotton 
steamer.    The  kid  who  had  been  hit  twice  was 


ONE  THEY  DIDN'T  GET        105 

all  right.  He  was  walking  around  deck  with 
his  cap  over  his  port  ear  and  proud  as  Billy-be- 
Damn' — three  times  wounded  by  German  shell 
fire  and  got  away  with  it ! 

The  fire  in  the  forehold  ?  Most  of  it  was  from 
two  old  mattresses — at  least  that  was  all  he 
found. 

"Did  you  put  the  fire  out  ?" 

"Yes,  sir.  The  steamer's  crew  were  too  tired 
to  do  any  more  hustling  around  to  put  any 
fire  out,  so  we  got  out  a  hose  and  put  it  out." 

"How  about  that  bulkhead  .?"  asked  the  skip- 
per. "He  hailed  that  he  didn't  think  it  would 
stand  the  strain  of  steaming." 

"Maybe  so,  sir,  but  I  don't  agree  with  him. 
I  don't  see  how  that  bulkhead's  going  to  cave 
in  with  all  those  bales  of  cotton  jammed  up 
against  it.  What  the  most  of  them  over  there 
are  suffering  from  is  the  reaction  from  that 
three  hours  of  shelling — everything  was  looking 
pretty  blue  to  them,  sir." 

"Can  he  make  steam?" 

"Yes,  sir.  Their  engineer  has  two  ribs 
busted  in  and  a  piece  of  shrapnel  in  his  neck 
and  part  of  his  foot  shot  away.  But  he's  all 
right.     He  was  lying  down  when  I  first  saw 


io6        THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

him,  cursing  the  Germans  blue.  Then  he  says: 
'Put  me  on  my  feet,  men.'  A  couple  of  oilers 
put  him  on  his  feet.  I  thought  he  was  going  to 
give  orders  to  make  steam,  but  he  only  wanted 
to  be  stood  up  so  as  he  could  curse  the  Germans 
a  little  better.  Lying  down  interfered  with 
his  wind.  He  rolled  it  out  in  one  steady  stream 
for  ten  minutes.  He  was  an  Italian,  or  maybe 
a  Spaniard,  and  his  English  wasn't  perfect, 
but  he  could  talk  like  hell.  He's  all  right. 
He'll  get  steam  up,  sir." 

By  and  by  they  did  make  steam  and  begin 
to  move  on  a  course  our  skipper  wigwagged  to 
them.  The  skipper  left  the  surgeon  aboard, 
and  at  twenty  knots  the  352  steamed  more 
circles  around  the  steamer,  all  lookouts  mean- 
while skinning  their  eyes  afresh  for  signs  of  the 
sub.  We  could  make  out  a  lot  of  smoke  on 
the  southern  horizon.  It  was  the  convoy  we 
had  left  in  the  morning.  An  hour  later  the 
Luckenhach  found  her  legs. 

Our  cripple  broke  no  records  for  speed,  but 
she  was  making  revolutions,  and  by  five  o'clock 
we  rejoined  the  convoy  with  her  alongside. 

So  here  Is  an  eight  hours'  log  for  the  352: 
At  nine  in  the  morning  she  was  responding  to 


ONE  THEY  DIDN'T  GET        107 

S  0  S-ing  ninety  miles  away;  at  five  in  the 
afternoon  we  had  her  tucked  away  for  the  night 
in  the  column. 

The  tall  quartermaster  came  up  on  the  bridge 
to  stand  his  watch.  We  were  in  our  regular 
position,  at  the  head  of  the  column  at  twenty 
knots.  He  looked  back  at  the  fleet.  "There 
you  are,  Lucky  Bag.  They  must  have  had 
you  checked  up  and  counted  in,  a  big  ship  and 
a  three-million-dollar  cargo,  this  morning,  and 
here  you  are  to-night — one  they  didn't  get." 


THE  DOCTOR  TAKES  CHARGE 

EVERY  American  destroyer  over  here 
rates  a  young  surgeon.  What  some  of 
these  surgeons  don't  know  about  sea- 
going can  be  found  in  about  six  hundred  pages 
of  Knight's  "Modern  Seamanship,"  but  that 
does  not  matter  much.  Let  them  look  after 
the  casualties;  there  are  capable  young  naval 
officers  to  look  after  the  seagoing  end. 

Most  of  these  young  surgeons  have  a  taste 
for  adventure.  If  they  had  not,  they  would 
not  be  over  here.  The  352  drew  one,  born  and 
raised  in  a  Southern  State.  Before  coming 
over  here  he  had  viewed  the  Atlantic  once  or 
twice  from  a  distance,  which  did  not  quite  con- 
tent him.  His  ancestors  must  have  crossed  that 
same  Atlantic  to  get  to  America,  and  some- 
where within  him  was  a  high-pitched  string 
that  vibrated  to  every  thrill  of  that  same  ocean 
now. 

He   used   to   speak   of  these   things   in   the 

smoking-room  of  the  King's  Hotel  here,  which 

is  where  every  destroyer  officer  comes  at  least 
108 


THE  DOCTOR  TAKES  CHARGE  109 

once  between  cruises  to  get  a — cup  of  coffee. 
He  would  have  liked  to  make  a  few  sea  voyages 
when  he  was  a  little  younger,  but  if  a  fellow 
is  ever  going  to  amount  to  anything  he  has  to 
settle  down  sometime  and  become  a  respectable 
member  of  society — so  his  folks  were  always 
saying,  and  so  he  took  up  medicine.  He  liked 
his  profession.  A  doctor  can  do  a  heap  of 
good  in  a  suffering  world — especially  if  people 
will  only  let  him.  But  so  many  people  want 
a  young  doctor  to  be  experienced  before  they 
ever  will  call  him  in!  "Get  experience,"  they 
say;  and  not  a  doggone  one  in  a  dozen'll  ever 
give  a  fellow  any  chance  to  get  the  experience. 
"What  the  most  of  'em  want  is  for  some  one 
else  to  give  us  the  experience."  He  did  as 
well  as  the  next  young  doctor,  but  at  times  he 
would  grow  almost  melancholy  sitting  before 
the  smoking-room  fire  telling  of  his  waiting  for 
business  in  his  home  town. 

He  was  not  at  all  melancholy  by  nature. 
He  could  keep  the  ward-room  mess  ringing  with 
darky  stories  on  a  quiet  night  in  port.  His 
messmates  called  him  Doc;  and  when  the  ship 
was  at  sea  they  were  all  glad  to  see  him  on  the 
bridge  studying  things  out.     He  had  plenty  of 


no         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

time  for  that.  In  two  cruises  his  only  cases 
were  one  quartermaster,  who  got  hove  across 
the  bridge  and  broke  his  nose,  and  a  gunner's 
mate  who  broke  his  leg  by  being  bounced  out 
of  his  bunk  one  windy  night.  They  were  a  dis- 
gustingly healthy  lot,  these  destroyer  crews. 

But  he  felt  pleased  just  to  be  out  to  sea. 
These  high  hills  of  moving  water  sure  did  give 
a  httle  ship  heaps  of  action  sometimes.  He 
would  watch  them  from  the  bridge.  He  would 
watch  the  officer  of  the  watch  too,  and  the  man 
at  the  wheel,  and  the  lookouts  with  their  eyes 
skinned  for  U-boats,  and  the  signal  quarter- 
masters balanced  on  the  flying  bridge  and  send- 
ing their  messages  in  a  jumping  sea-way.  He 
would  go  down  to  the  chart  house  with  the 
navigator  and  stand  by  to  pass  him  dividers 
and  parallels.  He  would  stop  to  sigh  when  he 
thought  that  if  somebody  had  only  tipped  him 
off  in  time  he  might  have  gone  to  Annapolis 
and  right  now  be  a  young  naval  officer  dashing 
around  on  one  of  these  same  destroyers.  Still, 
being  a  surgeon  on  one  of  them  wasn't  too  bad. 
If  they  had  a  battle  or  anything,  a  ship's  doc- 
tor wasn't  going  to  be  too  far  away. 

It  was  in  his  third  cruise  that  the  352  got 


THE  DOCTOR  TAKES  CHARGE  in 

the  SOS  which  resulted  in  the  rescue  of  the 
big  steamer  spoken  of.  There  had  been  other 
S  O  S's — any  number  of  them — but  this  time 
there  was  something  doing  for  our  young  doc- 
tor. When  she  signalled  that  nine  of  her 
people  had  been  wounded  by  shell  and  shrap- 
nel fire,  and  the  352's  skipper  ordered  a  deck 
officer  and  a  whale-boat  away,  he  also  told 
Doc  to  break  out  his  medical  gear  and  go 
along.  Doc  already  had  his  surgical  gear 
ready;  from  the  first  word  of  the  shelling  he 
had  gone  below,  and  now  everything  was  laid 
out  ready  for  action  on  the  ward-room  tran- 
som. 

Over  to  the  ship  they  went,  all  hands  in  life- 
vests,  and  while  the  deck  officer  of  the  352 
was  cross-questioning  the  captain  and  engineer, 
and  looking  around  to  see  how  much  damage 
had  been  done  and  so  on.  Doc  was  rigging  up 
an  operating-table  between  the  chart  house  and 
the  chart  deck  rail,  slinging  the  table  in  sort 
of  hammock  style  so  that  when  the  ship  rolled 
she  would  not  roll  his  patients  overboard. 

Doc  was  no  mean  little  operator.  The  great 
danger  to  most  of  the  wounded  men  was  of  in- 
fection.    One  after  the  other,  he  had  his  cases 


112         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

up,  asked  about  four  questions,  had  about  four 
looks,  and  went  to  it.  No  knowing  that  the 
U-boat  might  pop  up  again  and  try  a  few 
more  shells,  or  that  a  bulkhead  would  not  give 
way,  or  a  boiler  blow  up  when  they  tried  to 
make  steam  below.     No  knowing;  no. 

Up  they  came  to  his  swinging  table,  where 
Doc  took  a  probe,  poked  into  the  wound, 
wrapped  cotton  around  the  probe,  soaked  it 
in  iodine,  jabbed  it  in,  twisted  it  around, 
swabbed  it  out,  dressed  it  down,  slapped  the 
patient  on  the  chest,  said  "Next,"  and  did  it 
all  over  again. 

"Next !  You'd  think  it  was  a  blessed  bar- 
ber's shop,"  Doc  heard  one  of  them  say.  Only 
he  was  an  officer — by  the  back  of  his  head 
Doc  knew  it — some  of  them  would  have  told 
him  what  they  thought  of  his  rapid-fire  action. 
But  it  was  no  time  for  canoodHng — it  was  war, 
and  they  were  all  rated  as  grown  men  and  so 
able  to  stand  a  few  little  painful  touches. 

One  terribly  wounded  patient  gave  him 
worry.  On  him  Doc  worked  with  great  care. 
He  was  working  on  him,  all  the  others  being 
attended  to,  when  the  352's  deck  officer  came 
to  say  that  he  was  going  back  to  the  destroyer 


THE  DOCTOR  TAKES  CHARGE  113 

to  report.  "The  captain  of  this  ship  wants  to 
abandon  her,"  said  the  deck  officer. 

"Abandon  ship  and  we  will  never  be  able  to 
get  this  man  I  got  here  now  off  her — not  in 
this  sea,  sir,"  said  Doc.  "And  if  he's  left 
alone  for  two  hours,  he'll  sure  die." 

"I'll  signal  what  the  skipper  says."  The 
officer  went  off  with  his  crew  in  the  whale-boat, 
leaving  a  hospital  steward  and  a  signal  quarter- 
master to  stay  with  the  doctor. 

Doc  was  working  away  on  his  hard  case 
when  his  quartermaster  came  to  say  that  the 
352  had  signalled  that  they  were  to  stay  aboard 
and  that  the  steamer  was  to  get  under  way  and 
steer  a  course  south  half  east  magnetic. 

The  doctor,  without  looking  up,  said:  "All 
right." 

"Shall  I  tell  the  steamer's  captain,  sir?" 

This  time  Doc  looked  up.  "Why,  of  course, 
tell  him.  Why  not .?  Why  do  you  ask  me 
that?" 

"You  are  the  ranking  naval  officer  aboard 
here,  sir.     I  take  orders  from  you  now,  sir." 

For  about  four  seconds  Doc  neglected  his 
patient.     That  was  so;  so  he  was. 

"Yes,  tell  the  captain.'* 


114         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

The  quartermaster  ran  up  the  bridge  ladder. 
Doc  gazed  over  the  chart-rail  down  to  the  deck, 
up  and  around  on  the  ship.  ** Doggone!"  he 
breathed.  *'I  am  the  ranking — Fm  the  only 
naval  officer  present."  Then  he  shook  his 
head  and  bent  to  his  patient.  He  might  have 
the  rank,  but  the  last  thing  he  was  going  to  do 
was  to  butt  in  on  any  regular  ship's  officers. 

The  disabled  ship  went  on  to  her  new  course, 
south  half  east  magnetic,  with  the  destroyer 
steaming  twenty-knot  circles  around  her.  And 
late  in  the  afternoon  they  made  the  convoy. 
By  night  she  was  tucked  in  the  rear  of  twenty 
other  ships,  the  doctor  and  his  emergency  staff 
still  aboard.  They  were  to  remain  aboard 
until  the  steamer  made  port. 

That  same  night  something  happened.  On 
the  steamer  they  did  not  know  just  what  it 
was.  They  saw  a  column  of  white,  a  column 
of  black — those  who  happened  to  be  looking — 
another  column  of  white,  from  the  big  ship  of 
the  fleet.  And  then  dark  came.  There  were 
radios  flying  about,  but  they  were  code  mes- 
sages and  the  radio  man  could  not  decode  them 
because  the  first  thing  the  steamer  captain  had 
done  that  morning  when  it  looked  as  though 


THE  DOCTOR  TAKES  CHARGE     115 

the  U-boat  was  going  to  make  them  take  to 
the  boats  was  to  heave  the  code-books  over- 
board.    In  the  morning  they  would  know. 

Morning  came,  but  with  it  not  a  ship  in 
sight.  Of  twenty  ships  and  a  group  of  de- 
stroyers the  night  before,  not  one  now.  It  was 
his  signal-officer  who  thought  it  out  first. 
"U-boats  thick  last  night,  sir,  and  the  convoy 
must  'a'  got  orders  to  disperse  or  else  change 
course,"  he  said  to  the  doctor. 

"That  sounds  like  good  dope  to  me  too." 
He  turned  to  the  steamer's  captain.  "Where 
were  you  bound,  sir?" 

"To  Havre." 

The  doctor  could  see  nothing  else  but  to 
proceed  to  Havre,  and  on  a  zigzag  course. 
The  old  captain  did  not  know  about  the  zig- 
zagging; he  had  never  done  any  zigzagging 
and  did  not  know  why  he  should  now — besides, 
it  mixed  his  reckoning  all  up. 

The  doctor  said  he  would  fix  the  zigzagging 
part  of  it,  and,  telling  his  hospital  steward  to 
have  a  special  eye  out  for  the  very  sick  man, 
went  into  the  chart  house  and  proceeded  to 
explain  the  zigzagging  stuff.  He  paused  to 
recall  all  he  had  ever  learned  while  elbowing 


ii6         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

the  352's  navigator  over  the  chart-table;  also 
the  answers  he  had  got  to  his  questions  while 
so  doing. 

You  steer  45  degrees  off  the  course  you  really 
want  to  make  for  so  many  minutes  and  then  you 
steer  90  degrees  from  that  for  the  same  number 
of  minutes  back  toward  the  course  you  really 
want  to  make — see,  so — and  that  gives  so  many 
minutes  to  the  good — see.     That  was  one  way. 

"How  many  minutes?"  asked  the  captain. 

Doc  had  to  stop  and  think  that  over.  "Twice 
the  square  of  the  total  minutes — no,  no.  Take 
twice  the  sum  of  the  squares  of  the  minutes  on 
the  two  legs — and  get  the  square  root  and  then 
you  have  the  hypothenuse  of  the  two  sides  of  the 
triangle;  that  is,  you  have  the  number  of  min- 
utes' steaming  you  make  good  on  your  real 
course." 

The  old  skipper  knew  nothing  of  square 
roots  or  hypothenuses  or  anything  that  looked 
like  'em,  and  he  had  always  laid  his  course 
out  by  compass  points. 

"All  right,"  said  Doc,  and  after  a  while  laid 
out  the  zigzag  courses  in  compass  points. 

The  old  fellow  did  not  quite  like  it,  so  all 
that  day  Doc  alternated  between  his  bad  pa- 


THE  DOCTOR  TAKES  CHARGE  117 

tient  and  the  bridge  to  keep  the  skipper  re- 
assured about  the  zigzagging.  Also  he  urged 
the  crew  to  have  a  special  watch  out  for  U-boats. 

That  night  Doc  and  the  seasoned  signal 
quartermaster  stood  alternate  watches  on  the 
bridge.  Doc  would  take  a  nap;  the  quarter- 
master would  take  a  nap;  between  them  they 
were  figuring  to  keep  a  sort  of  official  navy- 
lookout.  There  were  ship's  crew  men  on  the 
lookout  too,  but  the  reaction  from  the  shelling 
had  set  in.  Doc  used  to  find  them  asleep  in 
the  bridge  wings. 

Just  before  dawn  of  the  second  morning  Doc 
saw  a  shadow  looming  on  their  starboard  bow. 
He  had  another  look.  It  was  another  steamer 
— a  big  one.  She  was  drawing  nearer.  **See 
that  ?"  he  called  to  the  man  at  the  wheel. 

"See  what  V  sort  of  drowsed  out  the  man  at 
the  wheel. 

The  trusty  quartermaster  from  the  352  was 
getting  a  wink  under  the  bridge-rail.  Doc 
yelled  to  him,  at  the  same  time  grabbing  up 
the  megaphone  and  roaring  into  the  night  air: 
"Where  you-all  going.?  Where  the  devil  you- 
all  going  ?  Can't  you-all  see  where  you're 
going  ?     Keep  off — keep  off." 


ii8         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

"Can't  you  see  where  you're  going? — keep 
ofF  yourself." 

By  that  time  the  signal  quartermaster  was 
awake  and  bounding  across  the  bridge.  He 
grabbed  the  wheel  and  began  to  spin  it  around. 
The  ship's  bow  turned.  Doc  saw  the  big  hulk 
go  by  him  in  the  dark. 

*  "Good  work,"  said  Doc.     "How'd  you  spot 
him  so  quick?" 

"I  didn't  spot  him,  sir.  I  don't  see  him  yet. 
I  went  by  the  sound  of  his  voice." 

"Special  little  angel  perched  up  aloft  to  look 
out  for  Jack  when  at  sea — "  sang  Doc.  "I 
thought  that  was  a  nursery  rhyme.  Now  I 
know  it's  true.  Between  you  and  me,  quarter- 
master, we'll  get  this  ship  to  port  yet." 

They  finished  that  night  and  the  next  day 
without  seeing  anything  or  having  anything 
happen.  Nothing  except  the  argument  about 
the  forward  compartment. 

Among  the  shells  which  had  come  aboard  the 
steamer  was  one  which  had  punched  a  fine  big 
hole  in  her  bow.  The  ship's  crew  had  put  a 
plug  there  which  worked  all  right  till  the  ship 
took  to  rolling,  which  it  did  this  day.  The  hole 
was  just  at  the  water-line.     Before  they  knew 


THE  DOCTOR  TAKES  CHARGE  119 

anything  about  it  there  was  the  plug  gone  and 
the  water  up  to  a  man's  knees  in  the  forward 
compartment.     Doc  said  it  should  be  stopped. 

The  old  skipper  wanted  to  know  who  was 
going  to  stop  it.  His  crew?  No,  sir.  He 
wouldn't  ask  any  of  'em  to  go  down  there — 
besides,  they  wouldn't  go.  They  were  all  used 
up  since  the  battle  with  the  U-boat.  It  made 
no  difference  if  the  ship  sank.  He'd  had  so 
much_^trouble  that  trip  anjAvay  that  he  wasn't 
too  sure  he  wouldn't  just  as  soon  see  her  sink. 
He  wasn't  too  sure  they  wouldn't  all  be  better 
off  in  the  boats.  The  U-boat  had  ordered 
them  into  the  boats,  and,  only  the  destroyer 
had  come  along  when  it  did,  they  would  'a' 
taken  to  the  boats,  and  then  they'd  'a'  been 
picked  up  and  no  more  watches  or  ships  or 
holes  in  the  for'ard  compartment  to  worry 
about. 

There  was  nothing  left  but  for  Doc  to  call 
for  volunteers  from  among  the  gun  crew.  They 
were  bluejackets,  and  their  only  complaint 
on  the  trip  had  been  that  the  U-boat's  guns 
had  outranged  their  guns.  They  volunteered 
in  a  body — even  the  three  wounded  members. 
Doc  took  all  the  sound  ones  and  went  down 


I20         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

into  the  forward  compartment  with  a  mattress 
and  some  scantHng  he  found  in  the  hold.  The 
water  was  by  then  about  up  to  the  men's 
waists.  It  was  hard,  cold  work,  but  they  got  it 
done — the  mattress  stuffed  into  the  hole  and 
the  scantling  shoring  it  up.  It  still  leaked, 
but  not  much — a  little  auxiHary  steam  in  there 
at  intervals  did  not  quite  keep  her  dried  out, 
but  it  kept  her  head  above  water,  so  that  was 
all  right.  All  that  day  she  was  a  lone  steamer 
plugging  her  halting  way  over  a  wide  sea. 
Seven  knots  was  her  speed,  and  all  hands 
tickled  to  be  making  that  because  of  weak 
places  showing  from  time  to  time  in  her  steam 
department — damages  by  shell  fire  which  they 
did  not  appreciate  properly  at  first. 

They  were  nearing  the  coast  of  France.  They 
would  have  to  make  a  landfall  soon,  and  run- 
ning without  lights,  as  they  were,  made  things 
hard,  so  the  old  skipper  began  to  talk  to  Doc. 
If  the  doctor  didn't  mind,  he  would  take  full 
charge  of  the  ship  himself.  She  was  a  big  ship 
with  a  three-million-dollar  cargo,  and  if  any- 
thing happened  her,  the  owners  would  naturally 
look  to  him,  the  master,  for  it. 

Doc  thought  it  was  a  pretty  cool  way  to  wash 


THE  DOCTOR  TAKES  CHARGE     121 

out  all  record  of  what  his  little  force  had  done, 
but  he  also  recognized  the  old  fellow's  position. 
"It  sounds  reasonable,"  said  Doc,  "but  I  think 
you  ought  to  give  me  an  idea  of  what  you're 
going  to  do." 

"There's  been  no  sun  for  a  sight  these  two 
days,  but  we  were  here" — he  made  a  new  dot 
over  an  old  one  on  the  chart — "and  logging  so 
many  knots  to-day  noon  we  ought  to  be" — he 
made  another  dot — "about  here  now." 

"How  about  the  tides  ?" 

"The  tides?  Oh,  yes!  Well,  I  don't  know 
about  the  tides.  You  see,  I  never  made  a  port 
in  France  before." 

"You  didn't?" 

There  was  a  coast  chart-book  In  the  rack. 
Doc  took  it  down  and  began  to  read  it.  He 
made  regular  trips  down  to  see  how  his  wounded 
patient  was  getting  on,  but  always  hurried  back 
to  his  coast  chart-book.  Interesting  things  in 
chart-books — he  used  to  read  them  aboard  the 
destroyer. 

That  night  the  first  mate  came  up  on  the 
bridge.  Doc  asked  him  what  kind  of  a  Hght 
he  expected  to  pick  up.  The  mate  told  him. 
Doc  thought  he  was  wrong,  and  said  so. 


122         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

Well,  that  was  the  light  the  old  man  had 
said  they  would  make.  Where  was  he  now  ? 
Asleep,  and  Lord  knows  he  needed  it. 

Doc  did  not  wake  him  up.  He  had  argued 
enough  with  him,  but  he  didn't  think  the  old 
man  had  allowed  for  the  tides,  and  if  anything 
happened  there  would  be  no  more  arguments — 
he  would  just  assert  his  rank  and  take  charge 
of  the  ship. 

Doc  went  below,  gave  his  worst  wounded  pa- 
tient a  night  potion  and  saw  him  to  sleep.  He 
also  went  down  to  see  the  chief  engineer,  who 
had  been  wounded  three  times — once  in  the 
head.  The  Doc  talked  to  him  awhile — he  was 
inclined  to  rave — gave  him  a  half-grain  jolt  of 
morphine  and  saw  him  to  sleep.  He  told  the 
signal  quartermaster  that  he  had  better  have 
a  nap  before  he  dropped  in  his  tracks. 

"  But  the  night-watches,  sir  ? "  ^ 

"We'll  leave  the  night-watches  to  the  ship's 
crew  and  Providence.  The  watch  may  sleep 
on  the  job,  but  the  Lord  won't — at  least  I  hope 
not.  Anyway,  I  know  I'm  doggone  tired," 
said  Doc,  and  turned  in. 

Doc  could  have  slept  longer — about  twenty- 
four  hours  longer,  he  thought,  when  he  found 


THE  DOCTOR  TAKES  CHARGE  123 

himself  awake.  It  was  a  sort  of  grinding  under 
the  ship  which  had  wakened  him. 

By  his  illuminated  wrist-watch  he  saw  that 
it  was  three  o'clock — three  in  the  afternoon,  he 
hoped.  But  it  wasn't.  It  was  three  in  the 
morning.     He  had  been  asleep  two  hours. 

He  went  on  deck  just  as  his  signal-officer 
came  to  tell  him  the  ship  was  ashore. 

Doc  found  the  old  man  and  the  mate  look- 
ing over  charts  under  a  hand-light  in  the 
chart  house.  "I  could  'a'  bet  we'd  'a'  picked 
up  that  other  light,"  the  old  man  was  saying. 

"The  bettin'  part  don't  explain  it,"  said  the 
mate.  "A  fine  place  to  be  high  and  dry  and 
a  U-boat  come  along  in  the  morning  and  plunk 
us  another  few  shells  between  our  livers  and 
lights.  I'm  tired  of  keeping  my  mind  on 
U-boats." 

That  was  when  Doc  horned  in  on  the  old 
skipper.  "I  been  pretty  easy  with  you-all. 
You  ought  to  been  twenty  miles  farther  east. 
You  listened  to  me  and  you-all  would  have 
been.  Look  here" — he  hauled  down  the  chart- 
book  and  showed  them.  "And  now  I'll  take 
charge." 

It  was  low  tide  when  she  ran  on  to  the  beach. 


124         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

With  the  flood-tide  and  the  engines  kicking 
back  they  had  her  off  at  dayHght.  After  that, 
with  Doc  on  the  bridge,  everything  seemed  to 
go  all  right.  The  mate  said  he  must  have 
come  over  the  side  with  a  medicine-chest  full 
of  horseshoes.  By  eleven  o'clock  next  morn- 
ing they  were  taking  on  a  pilot  outside  Havre. 

Havre  is  a  regular  French  port  with  jetties 
leading  down  from  the  heart  of  the  residen- 
tial places  almost.  The  people,  seeing  her 
coming,  she  bearing  the  evident  marks  of  her 
late  battle,  crowded  down  to  greet  her.  About 
five  minutes  was  enough  for  her  story  to  cir- 
culate. The  bluejacket  gun  crew,  being  in  uni- 
form, caught  their  eyes  first.  They  cheered 
them,  the  brav'  Americains.  And  then  the 
wounded  came.  Oh,  the  pity !  Three  or  four 
of  the  wounded,  who  had  all  that  day  been 
cavorting  around  deck,  saw  the  dramatic  values 
and  assumed  most  languid  poses.  Oh,  the  great 
pity !    Whereat  two  more  almost  fainted. 

The  worst  wounded  one — there  was  no  pre- 
tense about  him — had  to  be  carried  down  the 
gang-plank.  Doc  went  with  him.  Good  nurs- 
ing was  what  he  needed;  and  he  was  going  to 
see  that  he  got  it. 


THE  DOCTOR  TAKES  CHARGE     125 

He  got  it  in  the  port  hospital;  and  then  Doc 
and  his  two  assistants  turned  in  and  slept  six- 
teen hours  by  Doc's  illuminated  wrist-watch. 

After  cabling  and  getting  his  orders,  Doc 
headed  for  his  base.  Their  journey  back  by 
train  and  steamer — the  two  men  in  dungarees 
and  life-vests,  and  Doc  in  sea-boots  and  one  of 
those  sheepskin  coats  they  wear  on  destroyers 
— was  noteworthy  but  not  seagoing,  so  it  is 
passed  up  here. 

Doc  made  his  port.  We  met  him  in  the 
King's  Hotel  smoke-room,  and  he  told  us  all 
about  it.  We  had  had  it  already  from  the  quar- 
termaster and  the  hospital  steward,  but  Doc 
was  to  have  a  little  touch  of  his  own. 

"There  she  was,  a  little  down  by  the  head, 
but  safe  in  port,"  concluded  Doc;  "and  while 
I  was  waiting  for  my  orders  I  had  a  look  around 
the  place.  There  was  a  little  square  there  with 
little  cafes  all  around  the  square,  and  I  sat  in 
front  of  one  of  them  and  had  my  coffee.'* 

"So  this  was  France,"  I  kept  saying  to  my- 
self. All  my  life  I  had  been  reading  more  or 
less  about  France,  and  it  used  to  be  a  sort  of 
dream  to  me  to  be  thinking  I  might  some  day 
get  there.     And  there  I  was — only  a  little  corner 


126         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

of  France,  but  it  was  France,  and  a  pretty 
sunny  little  place  after  our  week  to  sea. 

"And  while  I  sat  there  people  came  up  and 
looked  me  over.  I  thought  it  was  my  needing 
a  shave,  but  it  wasn't.  I  had  my  cap  on,  and 
by  my  cap  they  knew  me  for  the  officer  of  the 
heroes  of  the  ship.  After  a  while  they  came  up 
and  spoke  to  me.  I  didn't  get  quite  what  they 
were  all  saying,  but  I  was  one  brave  man — ^we 
were  all  brave  men,  there  was  no  doubt  about 
that  part.  When  they  all  got  through  one 
little  girl  came  up  and  gave  me  a  bunch  of 
flowers." 

He  pulled  out  some  kind  of  a  faded  flower 
and  sighed.     "She  was  about  eight  years  old." 

"No  use  talking,"  I  said,  "it's  a  great  life.'* 
And  the  quartermaster — he  stood  with  his  sig- 
nal-flags sticking  out  under  his  armpit — said: 

"Yes,  sir,  a  great  Hfe  if  we  don't  weaken." 

"What's  there  to  weaken  about  ?  Something 
doing  every  doggone  minute  since  we  left  our 
ship." 


THE  343  STAYS  UP 

MOST  shore-going  people,  after  a  look 
at  a  fleet  of  our  destroyers,  would  not 
mark  them  high  up  for  safe  ships. 
They  are  too  long  and  slim  and  floppety-like. 

But  no  one  can  tell  their  officers  and  crews 
anything  like  that.  They  have  tried  them  out 
and  know.  You  take  a  destroyer  in  a  ninety- 
mile  breeze  of  wind,  put  her  stern  to  it,  give  her 
five  or  six  knots'  headway,  and  there  she'll  lay 
till  the  North  Atlantic  blows  dry. 

And  that  is  not  their  only  quality.  Speed, 
of  course;  but  not  that  either.  They  have  a 
way  of  staying  up  after  being  cut  up.  There 
was  that  one  which  was  of  the  first  to  cross  over 
for  the  U-boat  hunting  game.  One  dark  night 
she  was  struck  amidships  by  a  2,000-ton  British 
sloop-of-war.  In  crowded  quarters  and  steam- 
ing without  lights  those  little  collisions  are 
bound  to  occur. 

This    one    was    hit    amidships — bam ! — and 

amidships  is  a  bad  place  for  a  destroyer  to  be 
127 


128         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

hit — her  big  engine  and  boiler-room  compart- 
ment lie  amidships. 

This  one  of  ours  was  hit  so  hard  that  nobody 
aboard  ever  thought  she  would  stay  up.  She 
did  go  down  till  her  deck  was  flush  with  the 
water's  edge,  but  there  she  stayed;  and  her 
crew,  climbing  back  aboard,  took  a  hawser  from 
the  sloop-of-war,  which  towed  her  back  to  port. 
She  was  a  fine  heartening  sight  coming  in.  If 
she  could  come  back,  why  worry  about  minor 
mishaps  1 

One  of  them — the  343  say — had  performed 
her  duty,  which  was  to  see  a  small  convoy  to  a 
point  well  on  toward  a  large  port,  and  was  re- 
turning to  the  naval  base. 

She  was  in  no  great  rush,  and,  it  happening 
to  be  smooth  water,  which  is  a  rare  thing  up 
this  way  at  this  time  of  the  year,  she  stopped 
for  a  little  needed  gun  practice. 

There  was  no  more  thought  than  usual  of 
U-boats.  Nobody  would  have  been  surprised 
if  one  popped  up — it  was  a  coast  where  they 
had  been  regularly  operating — but  no  one  was 
particularly  expecting  one. 

Destroyers  are  bad  medicine  if  you  do  not 
get  to  them  quickly,   and  lately  the  U-boats 


THE  343  STAYS  UP  129 

seemed  to  care  more  to  get  merchant  ships; 
but  this  day  the  lookouts  were  not  loafing  on 
their  job  on  that  account. 

The  343  got  through  with  her  target  practice, 
and,  except  for  a  few  gunners'  mates  still  cod- 
dling their  pet  guns,  the  crew  were  taking  it  easy 
around  deck;  and  also,  because  of  the  smooth 
sea,  the  ship  was  making  easy  weather  of  it 
toward  port. 

Seeing  a  periscope  is  oftentimes  a  matter  of 
luck.  When  they  stay  up  it  is  easy  enough, 
but  when  they  are  porpoising,  shooting  it  up 
for  just  a  look  around,  you  have  to  be  looking 
right  at  one.  What  they  first  saw  on  the  343 
was  the  wake  of  this  torpedo,  coming  on  at  a 
forty-knot  clip  for  the  waist  of  the  ship. 

The  commander  of  the  343  was  on  the  bridge 
at  the  time  and  saw  the  wake  almost  with  the 
cry  of  the  lookout.  The  wake  was  then  pretty 
handy  to  the  ship,  and  the  torpedo  itself  would 
be  fifty  feet  or  so  ahead  of  the  wake. 

There  was  no  getting  away  from  it  then. 
The  only  hope  was  to  take  it  somewhere  else 
than  amidships.  Engine  and  boiler  compart- 
ments were  amidships.  If  it  struck  her  there 
they  might  as  well  call  it  taps  for  all  hands. 


I30         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

So  the  commander  put  the  wheel  hard  over — 
to  take  it  on  his  quarter,  where  there  was  also 
a  chance  that  it  would  pass  under  her. 

Torpedoes  generally  strike  twelve  to  fifteen 
feet  under  water,  but  just  before  this  one  could 
make  the  343  it  broached — came  to  the  surface 
of  the  water — but  without  slacking  her  forty- 
knot  speed.  It  was  unusual  and  spectacular. 
The  sun  shone  on  the  polished  sides  of  her  as 
she  leaped  from  the  sea. 

She  struck  the  343  above  her  water-line  and 
pretty  well  aft.  Those  on  her  deck  who  saw 
her  make  that  last  leap  out  of  water  hoped  for 
the  best,  though  waiting  for  the  worst.  But 
the  resulting  explosion  was  nothing  tremendous 
— so  officers  and  men  say,  and  so  adding  a  lit- 
tle more  data  to  U-boat  history.  The  bark  of 
one  of  their  own  little  4-inch  guns  was  more 
impressive.  There  was  a  flame  and  an  up- 
shooting  cloud  of  black  smoke,  followed  in- 
stantly by  another  explosion,  that  of  their  own 
depth  charges,  of  which  there  were  two  of  300 
pounds  each  in  the  stern.  Those  who  had  any 
thoughts  about  it  at  the  time  were  sure  that  if 
the  torpedo  did  not  get  them  the  depth  charges 
would. 


THE  343  STAYS  UP  131 

When  they  went  to  look  they  found  that 
thirty-odd  feet  of  the  after  end  of  their  ship  had 
been  blown  clean  off.  The  torpedo  had  hit 
them  on  the  port  side,  and  the  wreckage  was 
hanging  from  the  starboard  quarter.  Of  the 
after  gun  only  the  base  was  left;  they  never 
did  see  any  of  the  rest  of  it.  The  gunner's  mate, 
one  of  those  men  who  love  to  keep  a  gun  in 
shape,  was  swabbing  it  out  at  the  time,  and 
they  never  saw  anything  of  him  again. 

The  chief  petty  officers'  quarters  were  farthest 
aft  on  the  343.  The  after  bulkhead  to  their 
compartment  was  blown  in,  leaving  the  inside 
of  the  ship  open  to  sea  and  sun.  Fourteen  men 
were  in  there  at  the  time,  lounging  around  or 
in  their  bunks.  Many  of  them  were  bruised 
and  all  were  shook  up,  but  they  all  made  the 
deck.  They  do  not  know  how  they  made  it, 
but  they  did.  The  after  hatchway  to  the  deck 
was  closed  with  tumbling  wreckage,  so  they 
must  have  gone  up  the  midship  hatch. 

One  man  taking  a  nap  in  the  cot  bunk  far- 
thest aft  had  a  part  of  the  bulkhead  blown  past 
him.  It  cut  off  a  corner  of  his  cot  and  broke 
one  of  his  legs,  and  blew  him  into  the  passage- 
way in  passing.     Landing  in  the  passageway 


132         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

he  sprained  his  other  ankle.  He  is  not  quite 
sure  how  he  made  the  deck  without  help,  but 
he  did  make  it,  and  he  says  he  beat  some  of 
them  to  it  at  that. 

The  man  who  was  working  on  the  after  gun 
with  the  gunner's  mate  who  was  blown  up, 
saw  the  shining  torpedo  leaping  in  the  sun  and 
heading  straight  for  his  part  of  the  ship.     If 
he  did  not  do  something  he  knew  he  was  in 
for  it,  so  he  began  to  take  long  high  leaps  for- 
ward.    The  explosion  came  while  he  was  in  the 
air  on  his  third  long  high  jump.     All  he  re- 
members happening  to  him  after  that  was  of  an 
ocean  of  water  flowing  over  him,  and  he  not 
minding  it  at  all.     When  he  came  to,  the  doc- 
tor was  looking  him  over  for  broken  bones,  but 
did  not  find  any.     After  the  doctor  left  him  he 
sat  up  and  said:   "I  bet  I've  been  as  near  to  a 
torpedo  exploding  and  getting  away  with  it  as 
anybody  in  the  world,   hah?"     And   "Yes," 
said  one  of  his  shipmates,  "and  I  bet  you  made 
a  world's  record  for  three  long  high  jumps, 
without  a  run,  too.     You  sure  did  travel,  boy." 
When  it  was  all  over  the  two  propeller  shafts 
were  still  sticking  out  astern,  one  naked  and 
shining  in  the  sun;   the  other  also  shining  and 


THE  343  STAYS  UP  133 

naked,  but  with  a  propeller  still  in  place  on  it. 
Spotting  that,  the  skipper  ordered  the  engines 
turned.  To  their  delight  the  shaft  revolved, 
the  ship  began  to  move.  No  record-breaking 
pace,  but — God  love  the  builder  of  a  good  little 
ship — she  was  making  revolutions.  The  wreck- 
age hanging  from  her  starboard  quarter  acted 
as  a  rudder,  and  so,  instead  of  going  straight 
ahead,  she  began  to  go  round  in  circles. 

She  continued  to  make  circles,  and  her  offi- 
cers and  men  stood  to  stations  and  waited  for 
what  next  would  happen.  Destroyer  people 
have  it  that  there  are  grades  of  U-boat  com- 
manders— some  of  nerve,  some  only  ordinary. 
The  U-boat  man  with  nerve  enough  to  attack 
a  destroyer  is  a  good  one.  He  will  bear  watch- 
ing; so  what  they  expected  was  to  see  this 
U-boat  come  up  and  finish  the  job.  If  she  did 
come  up  and  at  the  right  place  to  get  another 
torpedo  in,  then  the  343  was  in  for  a  bad  time. 
So  they  waited,  some  thinking  one  thing,  and 
some  another,  but  all  agreeing  that  the  odds 
were  against  them. 

The  U-boat  did  show  again.  They  saw  her 
conning-tower  slipping  through  the  water  at 
about   i,5CX)  yards.     The  skipper  of  the  343 


134         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

was  ready  In  so  far  as  he  could  be  ready  with 
his  poor  little  cripple.  Crews  were  at  gun 
stations,  and  that  conning-tower  had  hardly 
got  above  the  surface  when  two  of  the  343's 
guns  cut  loose  at  it.  They  got  in  four  shots, 
the  fourth  one  pretty  handy.  But  no  more. 
She  submerged  to  the  discouragement  of  one 
earnest  gun-pointer.  He  leaned  against  the 
breech  of  his  little  4-inch  to  say:  "One  more 
and  I'd  'ave  got  her.  Bet  you  me  next  month's 
pay  that  I  get  her  if  she  shows  for  two  shots 
again." 

She  did  not  show  again,  but  her  not  showing 
did  not  end  the  343's  troubles.  They  could 
steam  in  circles,  but  it  was  not  getting  them 
anywhere.  A  few  miles  away  was  one  of  the 
roughest  shores  in  the  world,  the  kind  where 
green  seas  piled  up  against  rocky  cliffs — and  a 
tide  that  was  already  setting  them  toward  it. 
A  bad  enough  place  in  any  kind  of  weather, 
but  with  wind  and  sea  making,  and  this  time 
of  year ! 

It  was  about  two  in  the  afternoon  they  were 
torpedoed.  By  dark  they  were  being  driven 
by  the  tide  and  white-capped  seas  to  the 
shore.     They  had  one  hope  left.     Their  radio 


THE  343  STAYS  UP  135 

operator  had  managed  to  keep  the  radio  gear 
in  commission,  and  through  all  their  troubles 
he  had  been  sending  out  SOS  calls,  though  not 
with  too  great  hope  that  anybody  would  come 
in  time.  The  U-boats  had  been  pretty  active 
thereabout,  and  it  was  not  on  any  main  sea 
route.  There  was  always  the  chance,  of  course, 
that  some  war-ships  would  be  somewhere  near. 

For  one  hour,  two  hours,  three,  four,  five, 
six  hours  they  drifted.  Their  wireless  kept 
going  out  of  commission,  and  their  radio  oper- 
ator kept  patching  it  up  and  getting  it  going 
again.  S  O  S — he  never  let  up  with  that 
call.  It  was  midnight  when  a  British  mine- 
sweeper bore  down  and  hailed.  By  then  they 
could  hear  the  high  seas  breaking  on  the  rocks 
abeam.  The  Britisher  got  the  word  across  the 
wind,  and  tried  to  pass  a  messenger — a  light 
line,  that  is — across  to  the  343.  They  did  not 
make  it.  They  tried  again  and  again,  but  no 
use.  The  343  was  then  within  a  few  hundred 
yards  of  the  breakers. 

The  skipper  of  the  Britisher  then  hailed  that 
he  would  try  to  get  a  boat  to  them.  They 
could  hear  him  calling  for  volunteers  to  man 
the  boat.    He  got  the  volunteers,  and  without 


136         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

being  able  to  see  every  detail  of  it  in  the  dark, 
the  343*s  people  knew  what  was  happening. 
They  were  making  a  lee  of  the  trawler  so  as  to 
get  the  boat  over.  But  the  boat  was  swashing 
in  and  out  against  the  side  of  the  ship — up  on 
a  sea  and  then  bang !  in  against  the  side  of  the 
ship.  Merely  as  a  sporting  proposition,  their 
own  lives  not  depending  on  it,  the  343 's  people 
would  have  been  praying  for  that  boat  to  get 
safely  away. 

The  boat  managed  at  last  to  get  away  from 
the  side  of  the  mine-sweeper,  and  in  time, 
pitching  down  on  the  rollers,  they  made  out  to 
heave  a  line  aboard  the  343.  And  on  the  deck 
of  the  343  they  were  right  there  to  grab  it  and 
bend  it  on  to  a  hawser.  Fine.  Off  went  the 
mine-sweeper  after  she  had  taken  her  boat 
aboard,  tugging  heartily.  She  tugged  too 
heartily  for  the  length  and  size  of  the  hawser. 
It  parted. 

They  did  it  all  over  again — the  lowering  the 
boat  in  the  rough  sea,  the  passing  the  line,  the 
bending  on  of  the  bigger  line,  the  attempt  to 
tow.  And  again  it  parted.  Wouldn't  that  test 
men's  faith  in  their  good  luck .?  The  343 
thought  so.     Once  more  tried  it,  and  once  more 


THE  343  STAYS  UP  137 

it  parted,  but  this  time  not  parting  until  they 
were  far  enough  off  the  beach  to  be  safe  till 
daylight. 

At  daylight  a  British  sloop-of-war  came  along 
with  a  real  big  hawser  and  gave  them  a  real 
tow  to  our  naval  base.  A  group  of  us  were 
steaming  out  with  a  fleet  of  merchantmen  to 
sea  as  she  was  being  towed  in.  Our  fellows 
would  have  liked  to  turn  out  to  give  her  a  little 
cheer,  also  to  inquire  into  the  details  of  her 
mishap,  but  we  had  to  keep  on  going,  and  wait 
until  our  return  to  port  after  a  cruise  to  have  a 
look  at  her. 

She  was  in  dry  dock  when  we  got  back  to 
port,  and  the  most  smashed-up-looking  object 
that  any  of  us  had  ever  seen  come  in  from  sea. 
The  wonder  was  how  she  ever  stayed  up  long 
enough  to  make  port.  That  gaping  after  end 
open  to  sea  and  sky,  and  the  bare  propeller 
shaft  sticking  out  from  the  insides  of  her — she 
sure  did  look  like  she  needed  nursing !  They 
agreed  that  they  were  a  lucky  bunch  to  get  her 
home. 

One  poor  fellow  was  killed — a  wonder  there 
were  not  more — and  all  hands  were  sorry  for 
him;  but  tragedy  and  comedy  so  often  bunk 


138 


THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 


together,  and  men  who  adventure  are  more  apt 
to  dwell  on  the  humorous  than  the  tragic  side 
of  things.  There  was  that  about  the  code- 
books.  The  instructions  to  all  ships  are  to 
get  rid  of  the  code-books  if  there  is  ever  any 
likelihood  of  the  enemy  capturing  the  ship. 
The  code-books  are  bound  in  thick  lead  covers. 
They  are  kept  in  a  steel  box,  and  altogether 
they  weigh — I  do  not  know,  I  never  lifted  them 
— but  some  say  they  weigh  150,  some  say  200 
pounds.  After  the  343  was  torpedoed,  an  en- 
sign grabbed  up  the  code-book  chest,  tossed  it 
onto  his  shoulder,  and  waltzed  out  of  the  ward- 
room passage  and  onto  deck  with  it.  You 
would  think  it  was  a  feather  pillow  he  was 
dancing  ofF  with.  When  the  danger  of  capture 
was  over  our  young  ensign  hooked  his  fingers 
into  the  chest  handles  to  waltz  back  with  it. 
But  nothing  doing.  It  took  two  of  them  to 
carry  it  back,  and  they  did  not  trip  lightly 
down  any  passageway  with  it  either,  proving 
once  again  that  there  are  times  when  a  man  is 
stronger  than  at  other  times. 

After  the  343  made  port  the  injured  were 
handed  over  to  the  sick  bay  of  the  flag-ship. 
There  were  two  of  them  who  must  have  been 


THE  343  STAYS  UP  139 

pretty  handy  to  the  storm  centre  of  the  ex- 
plosion. At  least,  it  took  two  young  surgeons 
on  the  flag-ship  all  of  one  day  to  pick  the  gun- 
cotton  out  of  their  backs. 

There  was  another  man.  The  doctors,  when 
they  came  to  look  him  over,  found  the  print  of 
a  perfect  circle  on  the  fleshiest  part  of  his  an- 
atomy. It  was  so  deeply  pressed  in  that  the 
blue  and  yellow  flesh  bulged  out  all  around 
from  it.  The  doctors  said  it  must  have  been 
made  by  a  wash-basin  being  blown  against  him 
as  he  ran  up  the  ladder  to  the  deck.  But  the 
man  himself  knew  better  than  that.  "Excuse 
me,  doctor,*'  he  said,  "but  it  was  nothing  so 
light  and  soft  as  a  wash-basin  hit  me.  It  was 
something  more  solid  and  bigger  than  that.  It 
was  the  water-cooler,  and  I  didn't  run  up  any 
ladder — I  was  blown  up." 

The  destroyer  people  have  great  faith  in  the 
durability  of  their  little  ships.  They  are  slim- 
built,  and  not  much  thicker  in  the  plates  than 
seven  pages  of  the  Sunday  paper — they  know 
that,  but  maybe  that  is  their  safety.  There  is 
no  getting  a  fair  wallop  at  them.  They  evade 
the  issue.  One  man  compared  them  to  a  hot- 
water  bottle.     Try  to  swat  a  loaded  hot-water 


140        THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

bottle.  And  what  happens  ?  "When  you  poke 
it  in  one  place  don't  it  bulge  out  in  another  to 
make  up  for  it  ?  Sure  it  does.  And  how  do 
you  account  for  that  other  one  we  were  talking 
about  .f*  A  couple  o'  years  ago — the  one  that 
had  her  stern  cut  off  so  that  the  men  in  the 
after  compartment  leaned  out  where  the  bulk- 
head had  been,  but  wasn't  then,  and  chinned 
themselves  up  to  the  deck  from  the  outside ,? 
And  how  do  you  account  for  her  bouncing 
along  at  twenty  knots  or  more  in  a  gale  of  wind 
and  a  rough  sea,  and  nothing  happening  them  f 
Get  shook  up — ^yes.  But  they  come  home, 
don't  they  ?  They  sure  do.  Maybe  it's  luck, 
but  also  maybe  it's  the  way  they're  thrown  to- 
gether— loose  and  limber-like." 

Whatever  it  is,  they  are  dashing  in  and  out 
over  there  on  their  job  of  convoying  merchant 
ships  and  hunting  U-boats.  They  expect  to 
get  their  bumps,  and  they  do;  but  so  long  as 
they  get  an  even  break  they  are  not  kicking. 
The  chart-house  gang  on  the  343  say  that  they 
are  satisfied  they  get  an  even  break  all  right. 
If  she  did  not  fill  her  little  three-straight  that 
time  then  nobody  ever  did  get  any  cards  in  the 
draw. 


THE  343  STAYS  UP  141 

They  were  sticking  a  new  stern  onto  the  343 
when  I  left  the  naval  base.  When  they  get  it 
well  glued  on  she  is  going  out  again.  Maybe 
that  same  U-boat — you  can't  always  tell,  some 
people  have  luck — maybe  that  same  U-boat 
will  come  drifting  her  way  again.  And  if  they 
see  her  first — pass  the  word  for  the  gun  crews ! 


THE  CARGO  BOATS 

I  HAVE  spoken  earlier  of  meeting  cargo 
boats — tramp  steamers,  we  call  them  at 
home — ^while  crossing  the  Atlantic.  In 
peace  times  a  fellow  would  naturally  expect  to 
see  them  here,  or  almost  anywhere  else  on  the 
wide  ocean;  but  to  see  them  in  these  war  days 
was  to  set  a  man  wondering  about  them. 

Wondering,  because  more  than  90  per  cent 
of  U-boat  sinkings  are  of  ships  of  less  than 
12  knots'  speed;  which  means  that  these  rusty 
old  junk  heaps,  wheezing  along  at  maybe  9  or 
10,  but  more  likely  at  7  or  8  knots,  furnish  most 
of  the  sinkings.  They  surely  must  be  having 
great  old  times  getting  by  the  U-boats,  and 
their  captains  and  crews  must  surely  have  a 
view-point  of  their  own ! 

At  this  naval  base  of  which  I  have  been 
writing,  you  could  look  almost  any  day  and  see 
5,  10,  or  20  of  these  cargo  boats  to  moorings. 
And  ashore  was  a  pub — there  were  other  pubs, 
plenty  of  them — but  to  this  one  particular  pub 
142 


THE  CARGO  BOATS  143 

came  bunches  of  these  cargo  captains  to  forget 
things.  (Without  wishing  to  offend  any  pro- 
hibition advocate,  I  have  to  report  that  knock- 
ing around  the  world  a  man  cannot  help  no- 
ticing that  men  who  face  peril  regularly  do 
sometimes  take  a  drink  to  ease  off  things.) 

A  barmaid,  answering  to  the  name  of  Phyllis, 
presided  over  this  pub,  a  blond,  square-built, 
capable  person,  who  had  always  about  three 
or  four  of  these  captains  standing  on  their 
heads.  She  was  not  without  sentiment,  but 
never  letting  sentiment  interfere  with  business. 

"Phyllis,  my  dear,"  a  skipper  would  begin, 
and  get  about  that  far  when  she — her  right 
hand  reaching  for  the  bottle  of  Scotch  and  her 
left  for  the  soda — would  be  saying:  "The  same, 
captain?" — thereby  choking  ofF  a  great  rush 
of  words,  and  forwarding  the  business  for  which 
she  drew  one  pound  ten  a  week. 

Before  a  creature  of  that  kind  these  cargo 
captains  were  bound  to  preen  themselves. 
They  bought  at  frequent  intervals,  not  at  all 
like  the  ways  of  another  group — not  cargo  cap- 
tains— of  whom  one  of  our  American  warrant 
officers  said:  "You  buy  and  buy  and  buy,  and 
they  drink  and  drink  and  drink.     It  comes  time 


144        THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

for  them  to  buy,  and  when  it  does  they  sub- 
merge, and  don't  come  up  for  air." 

These  cargo  skippers  were  always  coming  up 
for  air.  They  would  hunt  a  man  three  stories 
up  in  his  room,  wake  him  out  of  his  sleep,  and 
haul  him  down-stairs  to  have  just  one  more. 
Between  drinks,  after  they  got  to  know  a  man 
pretty  well,  they  would  talk  of  their  sea  experi- 
ences; and,  after  the  fashion  of  all  true  adven- 
turers, their  talk  was  almost  always  of  the 
humorous  side  of  things. 

There  was  a  skipper  there  one  morning  who 
bid  all  hands,  especially  Phyllis,  good-by.  He 
was  off  to  Alexandria.  He  would  not  be  back 
for  three  months — more  likely  five  or  six  months. 
Phyllis  pinned  a  flower  in  his  coat  and  off  he 
went.  From  the  pub  window  they  saw  him 
board  his  ship,  and  an  hour  later  saw  her  steam 
out  of  the  harbor  and  to  sea. 

That  was  at  ten  in  the  morning.  At  five  in 
the  afternoon — the  lights  were  just  being  turned 
on — those  in  the  pub  who  happened  to  be  look- 
ing out  of  the  window  thought  they  saw  this 
captain's  ghost  coming  up  the  waterside  with 
his  crew  trailing  behind  him.  The  crew  looked 
as  if  they  had  dressed  in  a  hurry  and  were 


THE  CARGO  BOATS  145 

scampering  along  to  keep  warm.  But  our 
skipper  was  wearing  all  he  wore  when  he  left 
the  pub. 

He  drew  nearer.  It  was  no  ghost.  It  was 
himself,  even  to  the  rose  in  his  coat.  He 
hailed  Phyllis.  She  was  talking  to  another 
skipper.  The  other  skipper  turned  to  see  who 
was  butting  in,  and  seeing  who  it  was,  said: 
"To  Egypt  and  back  in  seven  hours — the 
quickest  voyage  ever  I  'eard  of!"  Which  com- 
ment so  depressed  the  voyager  that  he  refused 
to  say  anything  about  what  had  happened,  ex- 
cept that  five  miles  outside  of  the  harbor  he 
had  been  torpedoed,  and  they  had  to  take  to 
the  boats  in  a  hurry. 

The  foregoing  is  by  way  of  introducing  the 
captain  who  commented  on  the  quick  voyage. 
A  few  mornings  later  I  was  up  at  the  Admiralty 
House  when  he  came  into  the  waiting-room, 
let  himself  carefully  down  into  a  mahogany 
chair,  dropped  his  new  soft  gray  hat  into  his 
lap,  and  looked  around. 

"A  solemn  place,  ain't  it  ?  Would  the}^  'ang 
a  chap,  d'y'  think,  if  he  was  to  'ave  a  bit  of  a 
smoke  for  'imself  while  waitin'  ?" 

I  said  that  I  thought  the  fashion  nowadays 


146        THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

was  to  take  a  man  out  and  stand  him  up 
against  the  wall  and  shoot  him. 

He  was  tall,  heavily  built,  fresh-colored, 
with  a  way  of  seeming  to  reflect  deeply  before 
he  replied  to  anything.  By  and  by  he  said: 
"Oh,  aye!"  and  lit  his  cigarette,  but  had  not 
taken  the  second  pufF  when  the  doorkeeper's 
feet  sounded  outside,  at  which  sound  he  pinched 
the  cigarette  hurriedly  by  the  neck,  and  looked 
around  for  somewhere  to  dump  it.  There  was 
no  ash-tray,  and  the  table  being  bare  mahogany, 
the  floor  all  polished  wood,  the  fireplace  with 
no  fire  in  it,  so  brassy  and  shiny  that  to  put 
anything  there  would  be  treason — he  dropped 
the  cigarette  into  his  hat. 

The  doorkeeper  smelled  something,  but  he 
wasn't  one  who  looked  on  lowly  things  when  he 
walked,  and  so  did  not  see  the  little  spiral  of 
smoke  curling  up  from  the  hat. 

My  seafarer  was  in  a  great  stew.  To  sit 
there  and  watch  him  was  to  warm  up  to 
him.  There  he  was,  a  man  who  regularly  faced 
death  by  more  ways  than  one  at  sea,  but  now 
in  deep  fear  that  this  shore-going  flunky  would 
catch  him  smoking  a  surreptitious  cigarette. 
He  stared  determinedly  at  every  place  except 


THE  CARGO  BOATS  147 

at  his  hat  until  the   doorkeeper  had   passed 
on. 

When  he  looked  at  his  hat  the  cigarette  had 
burned  a  hole  in  it.  He  viewed  the  hat  sadly. 
"No  gainsayin'  it,  war  is  'ell,  ain't  it?  I  paid 
fourteen  bob  for  that  'at  three  days  back  in 
Cardiff." 

I  went  out  to  help  him  buy  a  new  hat.  Hat 
stores  were  scarce,  but  life  does  not  end  with 
hat  stores;  there  were  fleets  of  little  places 
where  a  man  could  sit  down  and  talk  about 
more  important  things  than  hats. 

In  the  hotel  smoke-room  after  lunch  there 
was  no  sugar  for  our  coflFee.  His  sea-training 
began  to  show  at  once.  "The  thing  you  'ave 
to  learn  to  do  at  sea  is  to  go  on  your  own. 
Nobody  doing  much  for  a  chap  that  'e  don't 
do  for  hisself,  is  there  ?"  From  his  coat  pocket 
he  drew  an  envelope  which  once  held  a  letter 
from  home — in  place  of  the  letter  now  was 
sugar.  "Preparedness — 'ere  it  is" — and  sweet- 
ened our  coffee  from  the  envelope. 

He  spoke  of  his  life  at  sea.  "I  can't  say  that 
I  like  it — I  can't  say  I  don't  like  it — but  it  was 
my  life  before  the  war  and  it  'as  to  be  since. 
You've  seen  my  ship,   'aven't  you,  lying  to 


148         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

moorings  ?  Nothing  great  to  look  at,  is  she  ? 
but  the  managing  director  of  our  company — 
he  has  the  'andling  of  maybe  a  'undred  more 
Hke  her — 'Let  'em  'ave  their  grand  passenger 
ships,'  'e  says,  *but  give  me  my  cargo  boats 
that  pays  for  theirselves  every  two  voyages.' 
The  right  idea  'e  'ad,  I'll  say  for  'im.  And  for 
my  part  of  it  there  is  no  everlastin'  polishin'  o' 
brahss  and  painting  o'  white  work  and  no  buy- 
ing o'  gold-laced  uniforms  at  your  own  cost. 
And  there's  the  bonus  for  me.  Oh,  aye !  A 
bit  of  bonus  ain't  a  bit  of  'arm,  you  know, 
especially  when  you've  a  wife  that's  no  eyesore 
to  look  at,  and  little  kiddies  growin'  up. 

"Torpedoed .?  Oh,  aye.  It's  not  to  be  ex- 
pected of  a  man  to  escape  that  these  days.  My 
chum  Bob,  remember  'im — that  was  seven  hours 
to  Alexandria  and  back — ^with  a  rose  In  his 
coat  ?  His  fourth  time  torpedoed,  that  was. 
I've  been  blowed  up  only  three  times  myself. 
Nothing  much  of  anything  special,  the  last 
time  and  the  time  before  that — a  matter  of 
getting  into  boats  and  by  and  by  being  picked 
up — no  more  than  that — no.  But  the  first 
time — maybe  it  was  a  novelty-like  then.  'Ow- 
ever,  I'd  carried  a  load  of  coal  to  Naples  and 


THE  CARGO  BOATS  149 

getting  twenty-two  pounds  a  ton  for  coal  that 
cost  two  pound  ten  in  Cardiff  maybe  makes  it 
a  bit  clearer  what  the  managing  director  'ad  in 
mind  when  'e  said:  *let  'em  have  their  grand  pas- 
senger ships,  but  give  me  my  httle  cargo  boats.* 

"From  Naples  I  go  on  to  Piraeus  in  Greece, 
and  we  take  a  load  on  there — admiralty  stuff, 
and  not  to  be  spoken  of — and  we  put  out  for 
'ome.  She  was  a  good  old  single-crew,  this  one 
o'  mine.  Twenty-five  year  old — not  the  worst, 
though  I'd  seen  better.  Well  warmed  up  she 
could  squeeze  out  eight  knots,  or  maybe  eight 
and  a  'alf  I  'ung  close  to  the  land  along  that 
Greek  shore,  for  if  anything  should  'appen 
ther's  no  sense  'aving  too  long  a  row  to  the 
beach  in  boats. 

"Very  good.  We're  rollin'  along  one  morn- 
ing when  the  radio  man  came  in  with  a  message 
which  read:  'PUT  INTO  NEAREST  PORT. 
U-BOATS.' 

"And  without  ado  we  puts  into  a  little  place 
down  at  the  'eel  of  Italy,  and  that  night  I  'ad 
a  'ot  barth  an'  a  lovely  long  sleep  in  my  brahss 
bed  which  the  missus  'ad  given  me  for  Christmas 
the  last  time  'ome.  And  a  great  pleasure  it 
was,  I  say. 


ISO         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

"Next  mornin'  we  put  to  sea  again,  and  next 
day  after  comes  another  radio,  and  it  says: 
*PUT  INTO  NEAREST  PORT.  U-BOATS.' 
And  we  put  into  Malta,  and  that  night  again 
I  'ad  another  'ot  barth  and  a  fine  sleep  in  my 
brahss  bed. 

"We  resume  our  voyage  from  Malta,  and  a 
two  days  later  I  gets  another  radio — more 
U-boats — and  I  puts  into  Algiers.  Three  times 
in  one  week  that  made  with  me  'aving  me  'ot 
barth  and  a  fine  sleep  In  me  brahss  bed — grand 
good  luck,  I  say  now,  and  said  it  then  to  the 
mate,  adding  to  it:  'There's  a  signal  station 
west  of  Gibraltar — ^wouldn't  it  be  delightful 
passing  that  signal  station  to  get  the  word  to 
put  back  to  Gib  and  stop  there  for  another 
night  and  I  'ave  another  'ot  barth  and  a  lovely 
sleep  in  my  four-poster  bed.'  But  the  mate  'e 
only  says  'e  didn't  have  no  brahss  bed  aboard 
ship  to  sleep  in,  and  he  saved  his  'ot  barths,  he 
did,  'til  he  got  'ome  to  enjoy  'em  proper. 

"Summer-time  it  was,  and  I  Hkes  to  take  my 
little  siesta  after  lunch — ^just  like  the  Dons 
theirselves,  y'  know — and  I'm  'aving  me  siesta 
next  day  after  lunch  when  something  woke  me 
up.     There's  a  shelf  of  books  on  the  wall  o' 


THE  CARGO  BOATS  151 

my  room — chart-books  and  the  like — and  when 
all  at  once  I  see  them  pilin'  down  on  top  of  me 
I  say  to  myself:  'Somethln's  'appened.'  And 
so  it  'ad.  The  mate  'e  sticks  'is  'ead  in  the  door 
and  says:  *  We're  torpedoed,  sir.' 

"'There  goes  my  bonus,'  I  says,  and  goes  on 
deck. 

"We  carried  a  3-inch  gun  in  a  little  *ouse  aft, 
and  there  was  the  mate  firing  at  the  U-boat, 
which  was  out  of  water  and  maybe  two  miles 
away.  It  was  one  of  those  out-of-date  guns 
the  navy  would  have  no  more  to  do  with,  and 
so  they  passes  it  on  to  us.  New  good  guns 
would  probably  be  wasted  on  us,  and  maybe 
that's  true.  None  of  us  aboard  ever  fired  a 
shot  from  the  gory  weapon  till  this  day.  The 
mate  fired  two  shots  at  the  U-boat,  but  'e 
don't  'it  anything.  The  U-boat  fires  two  shots 
at  us  and  she  'its  something.  One  of  'em  pahsses 
through  the  chart  house,  and  the  other  tears 
a  nice  little  'ole  in  'er  for'ard. 

"That'll  do  for  that  gun  practice,'  I  says. 

"*  Aren't  you  goin'  to  'ave  a  go  at  'em  ?'  says 
the  mate. 

"'You  can  'ave  all  the  go  at  'em  you  please,* 
I  says,  'after  we  leave  the  ship.     Besides  you 


152         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

there's  19  men  and  4  Eurasians  in  this  crew, 
and  some  of  'em  will  maybe  like  to  see  'ome 
again — I  know  I  do!' 

"We  get  into  the  boats,  myself  takin*  along 
what  was  left  of  a  second  case  of  Scotch,  and 
good  old  pre-war  Scotch  it  was,  not  the  gory 
infant's  food  they  serve  these  days  that  a  man 
'as  to  take  a  tumblerful  of  to  know  'e's  'aving  a 
drink  at  all.  I  also  took  along  three  sofy 
cushions,  hand-worked  by  the  missus,  with 
pink  doves  and  cupids  and  the  like — rare  lookin* 
they  was.  *A  man  might's  well  be  comforta- 
ble,* I  says. 

"I  'ad  a  cook.  *If  comfort's  the  word,*  says 
the  cook,  *I  might's  well  take  along  the  wife*s 
canary,'  and  'e  takes  it  along  in  a  cage  in  one 
'and,  and  a  bag  of  clothes  in  the  other.  'E's 
in  the  boat  when  'e  thinks  to  go  back  for  a 
package  of  seed  'e'd  left  for  the  canary  on  the 
shelf  in  the  galley.  *  Hurry  up  with  your  bird- 
seed,' I  says,  and  as  I  do  a  shell  comes  along 
and  explodes  inside  of  'er  old  frame  somewheres, 
and  the  cook  says  maybe  'e'U  be  gettin'  along 
without  the  seed — the  canary  not  being  what 
you'd  call  a  'eavy  eater,  anyway. 

"The  mate  'ad  a  cameraw,  and  when  we're 


THE  CARGO  BOATS  153 

clear  of  the  ship  he  would  stand  up  and  set  the 
cameraw  on  the  shoulders  of  a  Eurasian  fire- 
man, and  take  shots  of  the  ship  between  shells. 

"In  good  time  one  last  shell  'its  'er,  and  down 
she  goes.  The  U-boat  moves  off,  and  we  see 
no  more  of  'er. 

"It's  a  fine  day  and  a  lovely  pink  sunset,  and 
there's  a  beautiful  mild  sirocco  blowing  off  the 
African  shore  to  make  the  'ot  night  pleasant 
as  we  approach  it  in  the  boats.  A  man  could 
'ardly  arsk  to  be  torpedoed  under  more  pleasant 
conditions,  I  say,  and  we  continue  to  row 
toward  the  shore  in  'igh  'opes.  It's  maybe  two 
in  the  mornin'  when  we  see  the  side-lights  of  a 
ship.  She's  bound  east — a  steamer — and  we 
know  she's  a  Britisher,  because  we're  the  only 
chaps  carried  lights  in  war  zones  at  that  time. 
Carryin'  lights  at  night  o'  course  made  us  grand 
marks  for  the  U-boats,  but  there  was  no  'elp 
for  it.  A  board  o'  trade  regulation,  that  was, 
and  no  gettin'  away  from  what  the  board  o' 
trade  says.  We  had  our  choice  of  carryin' 
lights  and  losin'  our  ships,  or  not  carryin'  lights 
and  losin'  our  jobs.  So  we  lost  our  ships.  After 
a  year  and  a  'alf  of  war  some  bright  chap  in 
the  board  said  that  maybe  it  would  be  a  good 


154         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

Idea  to  change  the  regulation  about  carrying 
lights,  and  they  did.     And  about  time,  we  said. 

"Some  of  the  crew  were  for  'ailing  the  ship 
in  the  night.  *'Ail  'ell!'  I  says.  *D'y'  think 
I  want  to  be  took  into  that  rotten  'ole  of  a 
Port  Said,  or  maybe  Alexandria,  and  that  end 
of  the  Mediterranean  fair  lousy  with  U-boats. 
Besides,  we'll  get  'ome  quicker  this  way,'  I 
says,  and  allows  her  to  pass  on.  In  the  morn- 
in'  we  run  onto  the  beach,  and  'ardly  there 
when  a  crowd  of  Ayrabs  come  gallopin'  down  on 
'orseback  to  us.  'We'll  be  killed  now,'  says 
the  mate,  and  talks  under  his  breath  of  stub- 
born captains,  who  wouldn't  'ail  a  friendly 
ship's  Hght  in  the  dark,  but  the  only  killing  the 
Ayrabs  do  is  two  young  goats  for  breakfast. 
And  they  make  coffee  that  was  coffee,  and  we 
had  a  lovely  meal  on  the  sand.  And  by  and 
by  they  steered  us  along  the  shore  to  where 
was  a  French  destroyer,  which  takes  us  over  to 
Gibraltar,  and  from  Gib  we  passed  on  through 
Spain  and  France  to  Havre.  Three  weeks  that 
took,  and  I  never  'ad  such  a  three  weeks  in  all 
my  life.  'Eroes,  ragin'  'eroes — that's  wot  we 
were! 

"At  Havre  the  French  authorities  took  the 


THE  CARGO  BOATS  155 

mate's  pictures  out  of  the  cameraw,  and  they 
never  did  give  'em  back.  Except  for  that,  it 
was  a  fine  pleasure,  that  land  cruise  'ome. 

"  Lucky  ?  Oh,  aye,  you  may  well  say  it. 
Three  times  in  one  week  I  'ad  me  'ot  barth  and 
my  lovely  sleep  in  me  brahss  bed — it's  not  to 
be  looked  for  with  ordinary  luck,  you  know." 

One  day  the  destroyer  to  which  I  was  as- 
signed put  to  sea.  There  were  other  destroy- 
ers, and  we  were  to  take  a  fleet  of  merchantmen 
from  the  naval  base  to  such  and  such  a  latitude 
and  longitude,  and  there  turn  them  loose.  My 
friend's  ship  was  of  the  convoy. 

We  made  such  and  such  a  latitude  and  longi- 
tude, and  there  we  turned  them  loose,  signal- 
ling the  position  to  them  and  waiting  for  ac- 
knowledgment. They  acknowledged  the  signal. 
We  then  hoisted  the  three  pennants  which 
everywhere  at  sea  means:  Pleasant  voyage! 
They  answered  with  the  three  pennants  which 
everywhere  spells:  Thank  you.  And  no  sooner 
done  than  away  they  belted,  each  for  himself, 
and  let  the  U-boats  get  the  hindmost. 

The  hindmost  here  was  the  rusty  old  cargo 
boat  of  my  friend.     I  could  see  her  for  miles 


IS6         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

after  the  others  were  hull  down;  and  long  after 
I  could  see  her  I  could  picture  him — walking  his 
lonely  bridge  and  his  ship  plugging  away  at  her 
7  or  maybe  7^  knots  across  the  lonely  ocean. 

Three  times  torpedoed  and  taking  it  all  as 
part  of  his  work !  Some  day  they  may  get  him 
and  he  not  come  back;  and  when  they  do  the 
world  will  hear  little  about  him.  Hero  ?  He 
a  hero  ?  Why  a  shore-going  flunky  had  him 
bluffed  for  smoking  a  surreptitious  cigarette 
in  high  quarters !  'Ero .?  Not  'im.  Why  'e 
don't  even  wear  a  uniform. 

So  there  they  are,  the  wheezing  old  cargo 
boats  and  their  officers  and  crew.  British, 
French,  Italian,  American,  but  mostly  British. 

No  heroes,  but  the  Lord  help  their  people  if 
they  hadn't  stayed  on  the  job. 


FLOTILLA    HUMOR— AT   SEA 

WE  were  a  group  of  American  de- 
stroyers convoying  twenty  home- 
bound  British  steamers.  There  was 
one  ship,  a  P.  ^  0.  liner,  a  great  specimen  of 
camouflaging. 

She  was  the  only  ship  in  the  convoy  that 
was  camouflaged,  and  she  rode  in  stately  style 
two  lengths  out  in  front  of  the  others.  All  of 
which  made  her  a  prominent  object.  Our  of- 
ficers felt  Hke  telling  her  to  dress  back;  but 
she  had  a  British  commodore  aboard,  and  for 
an  American  two  or  three  striper  to  try  to  ad- 
vise a  British  commodore — well,  it  isn't  done. 

All  day  long  she  rode  out  in  front  of  the 
column,  and  all  day  long  our  fellows  kept  say- 
ing things  about  her. 

**Isn't  she  the  chesty  one!" 

"Look  at  the  big  squab  with  all  that  war- 
paint on — how  does  she  expect  any  U-boat  to 
overlook  her  ? " 

"That  big  loafer,  she'd  better  watch  out  or 
she'll  be  getting  hers  before  the  day's  gone  I'* 

U-boats  were  thick  around  there.     One  of 


158         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

them  must  have  come  up,  looked  the  convoy 
over,  and  said,  ""Well,  there's  nothing  to  this 
but  the  big  one!"  and,  Bing!  let  her  have  it, 
for  it  was  not  yet  quite  dark  when  those  who 
were  looking  at  her  saw  a  column  like  steam 
go  into  the  air,  a  black  column  like  coal  fol- 
low it,  and  after  that  a  column  of  water  boil- 
ing white. 

One  of  our  destroyers  hopped  to  twenty- 
five  knots,  dumped  over  a  300-pound  "ash- 
can,"  and  got  Mister  U-boat.  At  least,  the 
British  admiralty  later  gave  her  100  per  cent 
on  the  circumstantial  evidence.  Two  other 
destroyers — the  396  and  the  384,  we  will  call 
them — went  at  once  to  the  job  of  taking  off 
passengers  from  the  sinking  ship. 

That  was  at  five  minutes  to  six,  just  before 
dark.  It  had  interrupted  dinner  on  our  ship; 
but  by  and  by  we  went  back  to  the  ward-room 
to  finish  eating.  It  is  always  good  business  to 
eat — no  knowing  when  a  man  will  be  needing 
a  good  meal  to  be  standing  by  him  inside.  And 
we  were  still  eating  when  the  messenger  came 
in  with  a  radio.  He  passed  it  to  the  skipper, 
who  read  it  to  himself,  whistled,  and  then  read 
aloud:  Torpedoed — Clan  Lindsay. 

The  Clan  Lindsay  was  another  of  our  con- 


FLOTILLA  HUMOR— AT  SEA     159 

voy,  and  she  had  been  within  1,000  yards  of 
our  ship  when  we  last  came  about  to  zigzag 
back  across  the  front  of  our  column. 

We  looked  at  one  another,  and  one  said: 
"Well,  you  got  to  hand  it  to  Fritz  for  being 
on  the  job  every  minute." 

And  another:  "Yes,  but  it  looks  like  a  big 
night  to-night.  Two  in  an  hour  !  And  eighteen 
more  ships  and  eight  destroyers  to  pick  from 
yet !  If  he  starts  off  like  that,  what  d'y'  s'pose 
he'll  be  batting  by  morning  ? " 

The  ward-room  on  our  ship  opens  onto  the 
ship's  galley;  and  from  the  ship's  galley  an- 
other door  opens  onto  the  deck.  Through  the 
open  galley-door  just  then  came  a  muffled  ex- 
plosion— a  great  Woof! 

We  all  thought  just  one  thing — they've  got 
us  too  ! — and  we  all  sort  of  half  curled  up,  and 
would  not  have  been  a  bit  surprised  if  the  next 
instant  we  found  ourselves  sailing  through  the 
deck  overhead.  The  feeling  lasted  for  per- 
haps three  seconds,  and  then  our  skipper,  hap- 
pening to  look  up,  saw  that  the  colored  mess- 
boy  George  was  grinning  widely. 

"What  the  devil  you  laughing  at?"  barked 
out  our  skipper. 

George  took  his  eyes  off  the  galley-door,  but 


i6o         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

his  grin  remained.  Said  George:  "Cap'n,  I 
see  de  flame.  The  galley  stove  just  done 
bust!" 

The  galley  stove  on  our  ship  was  an  oil- 
burner.  It  had  back-fired,  and  so  the  loud 
Woof! 

Later  it  came  out  that  the  Clan  Lindsay 
wasn't  torpedoed  at  all;  but  one  of  our  de- 
stroyers dropped  a  depth  charge  so  close  to 
her  to  get  a  U-boat  that  she  thought  she  was. 

The  camouflaged  big  liner  sank,  but  not 
until  the  two  of  our  destroyers  standing  by 
had  taken  off  every  one  of  the  503  passengers, 
one  taking  the  people  off  the  deck,  the  other 
picking  up  those  in  the  small  boats.  One 
destroyer — the  396,  say — took  oflF  307  of 
these  passengers.  Her  skipper  passed  the  word 
by  radio  to  the  384,  which  had  gathered  in 
196  passengers,  including  the  commodore.  The 
384  got  the  message,  only  she  got  it  7  in- 
stead of  307  people  rescued. 

"Seven  survivors!"  said  the  384's  skipper. 
"I  wonder  why  she  radioed  that.''*'  He  medi- 
tated over  the  puzzle  and  by  and  by  solved  it 
to  his  satisfaction. 


FLOTILLA  HUMOR— AT  SEA     i6i 

"Of  course,  what  she  wants  is  for  us  to  take 
off  the  seven  and  add  'em  to  our  own."  He 
took  measures  to  meet  the  emergency,  and  then 
followed  this  little  incident: 

Aboard  the  396  they  were  busy  trying  to 
find  space  for  their  307  passengers  when  a  look- 
out heard  a  Putt !  putt !  putt !  coming  over 
the  water.  The  officer  of  the  deck  Hstened. 
Everybody  on  the  bridge  listened.  Putt !  putt ! 
putt !  it  came.  The  officer  of  the  deck  reported 
to  the  skipper.  The  skipper  wondered  who 
it  could  be,  when  just  then  a  radio  message 
arrived:   "Am  sending  a  boat — 384." 

"Sending  a  boat.?  What  for?"  He  medi- 
tated over  that  puzzle  and  then  he  solved  it 
— as  he  thought.  "Sure.  That  British  com- 
modore she  picked  up  is  coming  to  see  how 
the  survivors  aboard  here  are  getting  on. 
That's  it" — he  turned  to  the  watch-officer — 
"you  know  how  these  Britishers  are  for  regu- 
lations. Even  in  the  midst  of  a  mess  like  this 
we'll  have  to  kotow  to  his  rank  or  he'll  prob- 
ably be  reporting  us.  So  rouse  out  six  side- 
boys,  line  'em  up,  rig  up  the  port  ladder,  have 
the  bugler  stand  by  for  ta-ra-rums  and  all  that 
stuff." 


i62         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

They  did  that,  shoving  their  crowded  sur- 
vivors out  of  the  way  to  make  room  for  the 
ceremony. 

The  Putt !  putt !  putt !  comes  nearer  and 
nearer.  Next,  from  out  of  the  blackness  of 
the  ocean  they  make  out  a  Httle  motor-dory. 
Balanced  out  on  the  gunwale  of  the  little  dory, 
when  it  comes  nearer,  they  see  an  American 
bluejacket  smoking  a  cigarette.  No  one  else 
was  in  the  dory. 

The  dory  ran  alongside.  It  was  about  a 
14-foot  dory — no  smaller  one  in  the  flotilla. 
The  skipper  of  the  396  looked  down  at  him. 
**What  you  want?" 

The  bluejacket  removed  the  cigarette  from 
his  lips.    "I'm  from  the  384,  sir." 

"Yes,  yes,  but  what  do  you  want?" 

"I've  come,  sir" — he  waved  his  cigarette- 
stub  airily — "to  take  off  the  survivors.  The 
captain  thought  I  might  be  able  to  make  one 
load  of  'em." 

When  the  big  P.  ^  0.  liner  reported  herself 
torpedoed  that  evening,  a  destroyer — not  one 
of  ours — picked  up  the  message  100  miles  or 
so  away;  and  at  once  radioed :  Coming  to  Your 


FLOTILLA   HUMOR— AT  SEA     163 

Assistance — Give  Position,  Course,  and 
Speed. 

That  was  proper  and  well-intentioned,  but 
as  the  384  and  the  396  were  already  standing 
by,  a  radio  was  sent  back:  Everything  All 
Right — No  Help  Needed — Thank  You. 

That  did  not  seem  to  satisfy  the  inquirer. 
Would  Like  to  Help — Give  Position, 
Speed,  and  Course. 

Everybody  being  busy,  nobody  bothered 
to  answer  that.  By  and  by  came  another  radio: 
This  is  the  Destroyer  Blank — Give  Posi- 
tion, Speed,  and  Course. 

He  was  so  evidently  one  of  those  Johnnies 
who  are  always  volunteering  to  do  things  not 
needful  to  be  done  that  nobody  paid  any  further 
attention  to  him.  But  he  kept  right  on  send- 
ing radios.  By  and  by,  for  perhaps  the  seventh 
time,  came:  This  is  the  Destroyer  Blank — 
Please  Give  Position,  Speed,  and  Course 
of  Torpedoed  Ship. 

At  which  some  one — nobody  seemed  to 
know  who,  but  possibly  some  undistinguished 
enlisted  radio  man  whose  ears  were  becoming 
wearied — sparked  out  into  the  night:  Position 
OF   Torpedoed    Ship  ?    Between   Two    De- 


i64         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

STROYERS.  Her  Speed  ?  About  Four  Feet 
AN  Hour.  Her  Course  ?  Toward  the  Bot- 
tom OF  the  Atlantic. 

Nobody  ever  found  who  sent  that  message; 
nobody  inquired  too  closely;  but  all  hands 
thanked  him.  The  flotilla  heard  no  more  from 
the  bothersome  destroyer. 

The  business  of  hunting  U-boats  is  a  grim 
one.  The  officers  and  men  engaged  in  it  do 
not  like  to  dwell  on  the  hard  side  of  it.  They 
do  like  to  repeat  stories  of  the  humorous  side 
of  it. 

One  of  our  destroyer  commanders  over 
there  has  a  personality  that  the  others  like 
to  hang  stories  onto.  He  is  a  quick-thinking, 
quick-acting  man  named — well,  say  Lanahan. 
He  was  one  day  on  the  bridge  of  his  ship  when 
the  lookout  shouted:   "Periscope!" 

"Charge  her!"  yelled  out  Lanahan. 

Away  they  went  hooked-up  for  the  peri- 
scope, which  everybody  could  now  see — about 
200  yards  ahead. 

"He's  a  nervy  one — see  her  stay  up!"  said 
the  officer  of  the  deck,  who  was  standing  beside 
the  wheel,  and  had  glasses  on  the  periscope. 


FLOTILLA   HUMOR— AT   SEA     165 

And  then,  hurriedly:  "I  don't  like  the  looks 
of  her,  captain — it  looks  Hke  a  phony  periscope 
to  me — as  if  there  was  a  mine  under  it !" 

**To  hell  with  her — ram  her  anyway!" 
snapped  Lanahan. 

The  deck  officer  had  not  once  taken  the 
glasses  off  the  periscope.  Suddenly  he  let  drop 
his  glasses,  grabbed  the  wheel  and  pulled  it 
hard  toward  him. 

Lanahan  had  stepped  to  the  wing  of  the 
bridge  and  was  leaning  far  out  to  get  a  glimpse 
of  the  U-boat.  What  he  saw  beneath  him  as 
his  ship  scraped  by  was  not  a  U-boat,  but  a 
great  white  mine.  He  watched  it  slide  safely 
past  the  bridge,  past  his  quarter,  past  his  stern. 
Then,  turning  around,  he  said  gravely  to  his 
deck  officer: 

"You're  right — it  was  a  mine." 

There  was  another  young  officer — Chlsholm 
call  him — who  played  poker  occasionally.  He 
commanded  a  flivver^  which  is  the  service  name 
for  the  smaller  class  of  destroyers,  the  750-ton 
ones. 

In  our  navy  there  are  plenty  of  young  of- 
ficers who  will  tell  you  that  they  never  built 


i66         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

destroyers  which  keep  the  sea  better  than  that 
same  little  flivver  class.  Young  Captain  Chis- 
holm  of  the  323  was  one. 

One  morning,  having  convoyed  a  fleet  of 
merchant  ships  safely  up  the  channel,  the  323 
was  one  of  a  group  of  destroyers  making  the 
best  of  their  way  to  their  base  port.  Officers 
and  men  who  have  been  hunting  U-boats  for 
a  week  or  so  do  not  like  to  linger  along  the 
road  home;  so  it  was  every  young  captain 
giving  his  ship  all  the  steam  she  could  stand 
and  let  her  belt. 

It  was  breaking  white  water  all  around  when 
they  started.  It  grew  rougher.  Chisholm  in 
the  323  was  going  along  at  twenty  knots  when 
a  poker-playing  chum  came  along  in  his  big 
1,000-ton  destroyer.  Her  nose  hauled  up  on 
the  quarter  of  the  323;  up  to  her  beam;  up 
to  her  bridge.  As  he  passed  the  323 — and  he 
passed  quite  close  to  let  all  hands  view  the 
passing — the  poker-playing  friend  leaned  out 
and  megaphoned  across: 

"What  you  making,  Chiz.?" 

"Twenty  knots!"  hailed  back  Chisholm. 

"I  am  seeing  your  twenty  knots  and  raising 
you  five!"  returned  the  other,  and  passed  on. 


FLOTILLA  HUMOR— AT  SEA     167 

"The  boiler-riveted  nerve  of  him!"  gasped 
Chiz.    "But  let  him  wait!" 

The  sea  grew  yet  rougher.  The  323  was 
bouncing  pretty  lively,  but  hanging  onto  her 
twenty  knots.  "And  at  twenty  you  let  her  hang 
if  she  rolls  her  crow's  nest  under  !"  said  Chisholm 
to  his  watch-officer,  "and  I'll  betcher  we  won't 
be  acting  rudder  to  this  bunch  going  into  port !" 

It  was  at  ten  in  the  morning  that  the  big 
one  had  passed  them.  It  was  four  in  the  after- 
noon, and  the  323  was  still  going  along  at  twenty 
knots  when  from  out  of  the  drizzle  ahead  her 
bridge  made  out  the  stem  and  funnels  of  a 
destroyer.  It  was  Chiz's  poker-playing  chum, 
and  his  ship  was  making  heavy  weather  of 
it.  The  able  little  323  came  up  to  her  stem; 
breasted  her  waist,  her  bridge,  and  as  he  passed 
her  (and  he  came  quite  close  to  let  all  hands 
view  the  passing),  young  Captain  Chisholm 
leaned  out  from  his  bridge  and  roared  through 
a  long  megaphone:   "I  call  yuh  !" 

He  beat  the  big  one  fifty  minutes  into  the 
naval  base. 

There  are  two  channels  leading  into  the 
naval   base  port — call  them  West  and   East. 


i68         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

This  same  Chisholm  was  one  day  headed  for 
port  in  the  usual  hurry  and  was  already  well 
into  the  west  channel  when  a  signal  was 
whipped  out  from  the  signal  hill.  It  was  for 
his  ship  and  it  read:  "West  Channel  mined 
last  night  by  U-boats.  Proceed  to  sea  and 
come  in  by  East  Channel." 

Chiz  did  not  proceed  to  sea.  All  the  harbor 
men  who  were  watching  saw  him  come  straight 
on  through  the  gap  in  the  barrage,  and  safely 
on  to  his  mooring.  Also  all  the  harbor  knew 
that  next  morning  he  had  to  report  to  the  ad- 
miralty and  explain. 

The  story  of  his  explanation  was  not  told 
by  himself.  But  an  officer  friend,  a  great  ad- 
mirer— call  him  Mac — had  gone  with  him  to 
the  admiralty.  Here  the  next  day  Mac  told 
the  story  in  the  smoke-room  of  the  King's 
Hotel: 

"Well,  Chiz  went  and — you  know  his  courtly 
style — he  has  his  cape  over  his  shoulders — 
and  he  salaams  and  says,  'Good  morning, 
sir.* 

"The  old  man  looks  up  and  says  like  ice: 
*You  got  my  signal  yesterday  afternoon.'" 

"*I  did,  sir.* 


FLOTILLA  HUMOR— AT  SEA     169 

"  'Then  why  did  you  not  turn  back  and 
come  in  by  the  other  channel?' 

"'Sir,'  says  Chiz,  'may  I  be  allowed  a  few 
words  ? ' 

"  'Very  few.    What  have  you  to  say  ?' 

"'Sir,'  says  Chiz,  'I  have  been  trained  to 
believe  that  the  one  word  a  naval  officer  should 
not  know  is  fear.  In  our  navy,  sir,  we  rever- 
ence the  tradition  of  your  own  Admiral  Nelson, 
who  at  the  siege  of  Copenhagen  put  his  glass 
to  his  blind  eye  and  said:  "I  see  no  signal  to 
withdraw!"  and  continued  the  fighting  to  a 
victory.' 

"  'Have  you  a  blind  eye,  too?' 

"  'My  sight  is  good,  thanking  you,  sir,  for 
inquiring,  but  in  my  own  navy  we  also  have 
the  tradition  of  Admiral  Farragut,  who  at 
Mobile  Bay  said:  "Damn  the  torpedoes — go 
on!"  and  his  fleet  went  on  to  victory.  And 
there  was  Admiral  Dewey,  who  said:  "Damn 
the  mines  !"  at  Manilla,  and  went  on  to  victory. 

"'What  are  you  coming  at?'  roars  the  old 
man.    'Did  you  get  my  signal  ?' 

"  *I  did,  sir.  And  my  first  instinct — the 
instinct  of  all  our  naval  officers — is  to  obey  all 
orders  of  our  superiors,  sir.     But  I  was  well 


I70         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

into  that  channel  when  I  got  the  signal,  sir. 
And  as  I  have  said,  sir,  my  first  instinct  was 
to  obey  orders.  But  also  I  stop  and  reflect, 
for  I  have  also  been  trained  to  believe  that 
hasty  judgments  work  many  evils,  sir,  and  I 
consider  and  find  myself  saying  to  my  deck 
officer:  "This  ship,  Mac,  is  300  feet  long,  and 
under  her  stern  there  are  two  big  propellers. 
If  ever  we  turn  this  300-foot  ship  in  this  channel 
with  those  two  propellers  churning  and  there's 
any  loose  German  mines  around,  there  won't 
be  a  blamed  one  of  'em  she'll  miss.  But  if  I 
keep  her  straight  on,  there's  a  chance.  So  hell's 
afire  !"  I  says  to  Mac — "there's  only  one  thing 
for  us  to  do  now  and  that  is  to  keep  straight 
on!"  And  I  kept  straight  on,  sir — and,  I  beg 
leave  to  report  it  now,  sir — we  made  our  moor- 
ing safely. 

"And  that's  all  there  was  to  that,"  con- 
cluded Mac. 

There  was  a  long  silence  in  the  smoke-room 
when  Mac  had  done,  and  then  a  voice  asked: 
"If  Chiz  had  gone  to  sea  and  come  in  by  the 
other  channel — it  was  almost  dark  at  the  time 
— he  would  have  been  too  late  to  make  the 
barrage,  wouldn't  he?" 


FLOTILLA  HUMOR— AT   SEA     171 

"He  sure  would,"  said  Mac. 

"Which  would  mean  that  he  would  be  kept 
turning  his  wheels  over  outside  the  net  all 
night?" 

"He  sure  would." 

"As  it  was,  he  got  in  in  plenty  of  time  for 
that  little  game  up-stairs  last  night?" 

"He  was  in  a  Httle  game,"  admitted  Mac. 

Another  silence,  and  then  another  voice: 
"Well,  poker  or  no  poker,  Chiz's  dope  on 
that  damn-the-torpedo  stuff  isn't  the  worst  in 
the  world !" 


FLOTILLA  HUMOR— ASHORE 

THE  incident  reported  in  the  previous 
chapter  was  not  young  Chisholm's 
first  interview  with  the  British  ad- 
miral. 

Mac  went  on  to  tell  how  when,  after  his 
first  cruise,  Chiz  came  to  the  naval  base  to 
report.  He  had  heard  that  the  old  fellow  in 
charge  believed  that  the  Lord  made  the  earth 
for  admirals,  especially  British  admirals,  but 
beyond  that  he  knew  nothing  of  his  peculiarities. 

However,  after  his  cruise,  Chiz  went  whis- 
tling up  the  hill  to  report.  By  and  by  he  was 
admitted  to  the  presence  of  the  admiral,  who 
was  seated  at  a  flat  desk  in  the  middle  of  the 
room,  gazing  straight  ahead. 

The  old  chap  looked  pretty  frosty.  Chiz 
waited  a  moment,  then  ventured  a  cheery 
"Good  morning,  sir." 

The  face  at  the  desk  did  not  even  turn  to 
look  at  him,  but  the  thin  lips  almost  opened 
and  a  rasping  voice  said:  "Got  anything  to 
say  to  me?" 

Chiz  was  one  of  the  sociable  souls,  and  he 
172 


FLOTILLA   HUMOR— ASHORE     173 

would  have  liked  to  sit  down  and  talk  in  an 
informal  way  of  several  little  sea  things  that 
he  thought  were  fairly  interesting.  But  he 
had  not  been  asked  even  to  sit  down,  and  the 
voice  froze  him.  So,  "Why,  no  sir,  nothing 
special  to  report,'*  was  all  he  could  find  to  say. 

"H-m.  Nothing  to  say  ?  Then  why  waste 
my  time  or  your  own?  Might  as  well  get 
out,  hadn't  you?" 

Chiz  got  out. 

"An  American  lieutenant-commander  in  this 
place  must  rate  about  seven  numbers  below  a 
yellow  dog,"  said  Chiz  to  Mac  when  he  came 
out. 

Chiz  had  four  days  in  port  (Mac  is  still  telling 
the  story)  after  that  cruise,  and  two  days  after 
his  visit  to  the  hill  there  was  a  cricket-match 
between  a  team  from  our  flotilla  and  a  team 
from  theirs.  The  idea  was  for  all  hands  to  for- 
get rank  for  a  while,  get  into  the  game,  and 
so  cement  the  entente  between  the  two  nations. 

Chiz  was  picked  for  one  of  our  team,  and 
you  all  know  what  a  husky  he  is,  and  what  he 
used  to  do  with  a  baseball-bat.  There  aren't 
many  who  ever  hit  'em  any  further  or  oftener 
than  Chiz  on  the  old  Annapolis  ball-field.    He 


174         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

was  one  of  the  first  of  our  fellows  to  go  to  bat. 
He's  standing  there — in  the  box,  or  whatever 
they  call  it,  waiting  for  one  to  his  liking;  and 
looking  around  the  field  wondering  where  he 
will  place  it  when  he  gets  one  to  his  hking. 
And  as  he  looks  he  spies  his  friend  the  admiral, 
playing  what  we'd  call  left  field.  And  just  be- 
yond the  admiral  the  ground  sloped  away  for 
a  hundred  yards  or  so. 

Chiz  hefts  his  bat — and  you  know  those 
cricket-bats,  what  they  look  like  and  how  thej^ 
feel  after  you've  been  used  to  meeting  fast 
ones  with  a  narrow  baseball-bat.  They  are 
wide  and  heavy  and  springy.  Chiz  doesn't 
pay  any  attention  to  three  or  four  balls  that 
come  along,  except  to  fend  them  away  from  the 
wicket  with  his  wide  cricket-bat.  He  knew 
what  he  wanted,  and  by  and  by  he  got  one — 
one  about  knee-high  with  a  little  incurve  to 
it.  Chiz  sets  himself  and  swings  and  whale-0 
it  goes,  over  the  old  admiral's  head  and  down 
the  slope  beyond. 

Chiz  makes  all  the  runs  the  law  allows — 
six,  I  think  it  is — and  he's  sitting  resting  on 
the  wide  part  of  his  cricket-bat  before  the  ad- 
miral even  shows  the  top  of  his  head  over  the 


FLOTILLA   HUMOR— ASHORE     175 

hill  with  the  ball.  When  he  does  and  heaves 
it  about  half-way  to  the  pitcher,  or  bowler, 
or  whatever  they  call  him,  he's  out  of  breath. 

Chiz  sets  himself  for  another  one  knee-high 
with  an  inshoot,  and  when  he  gets  one  he  whales 
it  again,  and  away  trots  the  admiral  on  another 
hunt  down  the  hill.  And  Chiz  makes  six  more 
runs  before  they  even  see  the  top  of  the  ad- 
miral's head  over  the  brow  of  the  hill. 

The  third  time,  and  the  fourth  time,  Chiz 
sets  for  a  knee-high  one  with  an  inshoot  to 
it,  and  the  third  time  and  the  fourth  time  he 
belts  it  over  the  old  fellow's  head  and  down  the 
long  slope.  But  on  the  fourth  time  the  old  fel- 
low doesn't  throw  the  ball  in.  He  walks  in  with 
it  and  he  calls  in  the  high  official  umpires,  or 
whoever  they  are  in  charge,  and  they  have  a 
conference,  and  the  next  thing  they  call  the 
game  off.  By  this  time,  doubtless  (so  the 
word  was  passed),  the  American  officers  have 
caught  the  idea  of  the  game,  and  next  time 
there  would  be  a  real  game  and  so  on. 

But  there  was  no  next  game.  However, 
next  day  Chiz  puts  out  to  sea,  and  when  he's 
into  port  again  he  calls  up  on  the  hill  as  per 
instructions.    And  by  and  by  he  is  passed  again 


176         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

into  the  presence,  who  is  sitting  just  as  before 
at  the  flat  desk  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and 
gazing  straight  before  him. 

This  time  Chiz  doesn't  speak,  not  even  to 
say:  "Good  morning,  sir."  And  the  graven 
image  at  the  desk  doesn't  speak  either,  and 
there's  a  silence  for  maybe  a  minute,  and  then 
the  old  fellow  barks  out:  "What  are  you  stand- 
ing there  for  ^  You  wish  to  see  me  ? "  And 
Chiz  barks  out  in  his  turn:  "No,  sir,  I  don't 
wish  to  see  you." 

"You  do  not  wish  to  see  me?  Then  what 
are  you  doing  here  ? " 

And  Chiz  cracks  out:  "I'm  here  because 
your  orders  compel  me  to  be  here,  sir." 

Zozvie! — that  straightened  the  old  boy  up. 
He  took  a  look  at  Chiz,  and  he  says,  after  a 
while  and  almost  pleasantly:   "Have  a  chair." 

And  Chiz  has  a  chair,  and  they  have  a  talk, 
and  after  that  Chiz  finds  him  a  lot  easier  to 
get  along  with.  Chiz  says  now  that  the  old 
fellow  isn't  such  a  terrible  chap — not  after 
you  get  onto  his  curves. 

When  we  first  came  over  (Mac  is  still  speak- 
ing), most  of  the  topsiders  over  here  were  strong 


FLOTILLA   HUMOR— ASHORE     177 

for  the  entente  stuff,  and  a  good  thing,  too — 
why  not  ? 

Our  fellows  were  mostly  strong  for  it,  too — 
two  or  three  so  strong  that  it  was  hard  to  tell 
whether  they  were  Americans  or  something 
else — even  their  accents. 

And,  as  I  say,  most  of  the  officers  of  our 
own  over  here  were  for  it — most  of  them.  But 
you  can't  rid  everybody  overnight  of  long- 
inherited  notions.  There  was  one  chap  we 
used  to  meet,  and  he  sure  was  the  most  patron- 
izing thing ! 

Now,  we  know  we  haven't  the  biggest  navy 
in  the  world,  but  as  far  as  it  goes  we  thmk  it 
is  pretty  good.  As  good  as  anybody's,  man  for 
man,  and  ship  for  ship — but  let  that  pass. 

This  chap,  who  never  could  see  anything  in 
our  navy,  came  in  here  one  day.  He  wasn't 
bad.  He  was  just  one  of  those  naturally  fooHsh 
ones  who  thought  he  was  a  little  brighter  than 
his  company.  The  topsiders  would  be  work- 
ing night  and  day  to  create  good  feeling,  and  he 
was  the  kind  would  come  along  and  break  up 
the  show — not  exactly  meaning  to. 

This  was  in  the  hotel  bar  here,  where  a 
bunch  of  us  were  easing  off  after  a  hard  cruise, 


178         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

when  he  comes  along.  He  doesn't  like  the 
names  of  our  destroyers.  In  his  navy  there 
was  significance  in  the  names  they  gave  to  a 
class  of  ships. 

''Take  Viper ^  Adder,  Moccasin,  and  so  on — 
they  suggest  things  y*  know.  Dangerous  to 
meddle  with  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  y'  know. 
But  your  people  name  your  ships  after  men 
evidently — David  Jones,  Conyngham,  McDon- 
ough.  I  say,  who  are  they — Presidents  or 
senators  or  that  sort,  or  what  ?" 

Lanahan  was  there — the  hell-with-her-ram- 
her-an3/way  Lanahan — and  we  all  just  nat- 
urally turned  him  over  to  Lanahan,  who  had 
west-of-Ireland  forebears,  and  never  did  be- 
lieve in  letting  any  Englishman  put  anything 
across — nothing  like  that  anyway. 

''You  never  read  much,  I  take  it,  of  our 
history?"  says  Lanahan. 

"Your  history .?  My  dear  chap,  I  had  hard 
work  keeping  up  with  my  own." 

"No  doubt.  But  you've  heard  of  the  Amer- 
ican Revolution?" 

"I  dessay  I  have —    Oh,  yes,  I  have!'* 

"Well,  you  spoke  of  Jones.  If  you  mean 
John  Paul,  then  there  was  a  naval  fight  one 


FLOTILLA  HUMOR— ASHORE     179 

time  in  the  North  Sea — the  Serapis  and  the 
Bonhomme  Richard.'" 

"I  say,  old  chap,  I  didn't  mention  John 
Paul  Jones.  David  Jones  is  the  name  of  your 
destroyer  out  in  the  harbor  now." 

"David  Jones.''  Let  me  see.  Why,  sure, 
David  Jones  was  a  New  England  parson  who 
boarded  around  among  the  God-fearing  neigh- 
bors for  his  keep  on  week-days  and  preached 
the  wrath  of  God  and  hell-fire  for  his  cash  wage 
— five  pound  a  year — on  Sundays.  He  was  a 
devout  man.  If  thy  finger  offend  thee,  cut  it 
oflF.  But  a  sort  of  muscular  Christian,  too. 
If  thy  enemy  cross  thee,  go  out  and  whale 
the  livers  and  lights  out  of  him — same  as  we're 
trying  to  do  to  the  U-boats  now. 

"Well,  David  lived  in  the  shadow  of  the 
church  till  he  was  thirty-seven  years  of  age. 
Then  the  Revolution  broke,  and  David,  in 
whose  veins  flowed  the  blood  of  old  Covenant- 
ers, took  a  running  long  jump  into  it.  He 
started  in  as  deck-hand  or,  perhaps,  it  was 
cook's  helper,  but  there  was  salt  in  his  veins 
too,  and  rapidly  he  learned  his  trade.  And 
soon  rose  in  his  new  profession  until  he  was 
master  of  his  own  ship,  and,  as  master,  raising 


i8o         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

the  devil  among  the  coasters  which  used  to 
cruise  out  of  Maritime  Province  ports  in  those 
days.  The  captures  he  made  of  vessels  loaded 
with  hay  and  potatoes,  and  so  on,  materially 
reduced  the  high  cost  of  living  for  New  Eng- 
land folks  in  those  days. 

'^Conyngham .?  He  was  a  young  American 
lad  who  did  not  come  of  any  particularly  good 
old  stock,  meaning  that  he  did  not  come  from 
Massachusetts  or  Virginia  probably.  He  went 
to  sea  as  a  midshipman  on  an  American  sloop- 
of-war.  And  he  turned  out  to  be  some  little 
middy.  Ensign,  lieutenant,  commander — man, 
he  just  ran  up  the  ladder  of  naval  rank.  And 
got  a  ship  of  his  own — a  fine,  young,  able  sloop- 
of-war,  and  with  this  sloop-of-war  he  would 
run  out  from  the  French  channel  ports  and 
harry  the  English  coast  and  EngHsh  shipping. 
Never  heard  of  him  .?  No  ?  Well,  well ! — and 
he  so  famous  in  his  day  that  King  George  put 
up  a  reward  of  i,ooo  pounds  for  his  capture 
dead  or  alive.     But  they  never  captured  him. 

"And  Barry .?  He  was  the  Wexford  boy 
who  captured  200  English  prizes  more  or  less 
in  the  West  Indies.  Paul  Jones  trained  under 
Barry    before    he    had    a    ship    of   his    own. 


FLOTILLA  HUMOR— ASHORE     i8i 

And    McDonough  ?     He — but    am    I    boring 

you  ? 

**No,  no — it  is  very  interesting." 

"I  am  glad.  Well,  McDonough  was  the 
commodore  who  fought  the  battle  of  Lake 
Champlain  against  your  people.  He  opened 
that  battle  with  prayers  for  the  living  and 
closed  it  with  prayers  for  the  dead.  You  want 
to  watch  out  for  those  fellows  who  pray  when 
they  go  to  war.  Their  technic  is  sometimes 
pretty  good.  Their  spirit  is  always  good. 
While  Mac  was  looking  over  the  booty  after 
that  fight,  a  funny  thing  happened.    He " 

"I  say,  old  chap,  it's  all  very  interesting, 
exceedingly  interesting,  but  what  d'y'  say  to 
another  little  nip  before  I  go.?  I've  got  to  run 
along  to  see  the  chief  now.  What  will  you 
have  to  drink .?" 

"Sure.  A  nip  of  Irish,  if  you  please.  And 
here" — Lanahan  held  up  his  glass — "here's  to 
the  memory  of  dead  heroes — may  they  always 
be  preferred  to  crawling  reptiles  when  it  comes 
to  naming  our  fighting  ships  !" 

After  the  other  fellow  had  gone  Lanahan 
turned  to  us.  "Say,  fellows,  I  know  I  got 
Paul  Jones  and  Barry  and  McDonough  right, 


i82         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

but  how  near  was  I  on  Davey  Jones  and 
Conyngham  ?  Something  tells  me  I  got  their 
histories  mixed." 

This  admiral,  of  whom  our  fellows  used  to 
spin  the  yarns,  was  a  unique  character.  He 
lacked  imagination,  and  he  had  the  manner 
of  a  rat-terrier  toward  people  not  of  his  own 
kind;   but  he  was  one  good  executive. 

Devotion  to  duty — conscience — those  were 
his  beacon  lights.  He  had  been  known,  when 
the  minister  of  the  local  church  wasn't  up  to 
standard,  to  walk  into  the  pulpit,  and  deliver 
the  sermon  himself.  Before  he  came  to  take 
command  of  this  coast  district  the  U-boats 
had  been  raising  Cain  there.  There  was  a 
fleet  of  steam-trawlers  handled  by  their  old 
fishing  captains  and  crews,  whose  special  duty 
it  was  to  sweep  up  the  waters  just  outside  the 
harbor  for  mines.  It  was  at  that  time  a  dan- 
gerous business,  but  it  was  also  monotonous. 
It  was  a  duty  most  easy  to  evade. 

Who  was  to  say  they  had  not  swept  up  .? 
No  cove  at  a  naval  base  five  hundred  miles 
away,  that  was  sure!  Even  if  mines  were 
found  there  after  they  reported  it  swept  clear, 
what  would  that  prove  ?    The  Huns  were  lay- 


FLOTILLA  HUMOR— ASHORE     183 

Ing  mines  all  the  time,  weren't  they?  So — 
war  days  are  hard  enough  anyway — why  not 
ease  up  now  and  again  ? 

They  eased  up.  Many  a  snug  little  place 
there  was  along  the  coast  where  a  crew  could 
go  ashore  and  have  a  pleasant  time  for  a  day 
or  two.  There  were  reports  to  fill  out,  but 
what  were  reports  ?  Ship  a  clerk  in  the  crew 
and  who  would  know  ?  Surely  not  some 
aide  at  the  naval  base  who  spent  his  busiest 
hours  taking  the  admiral's  niece  to  tea 
fights ! 

The  British  public  will  probably  stand  more 
from  their  lawfully  ordained  rulers  than  any 
other  public  on  earth.  They  stood  for  a  good 
many  ships  being  mined  on  that  coast  before 
they  began  to  ask  the  why  of  it. 

The  powers  returned  with  facts  and  figures, 
percentage  tables,  and  so  on,  of  ships  depart- 
ing and  ships  arriving;  proving  clearly  that  the 
number  of  ships  lost  was  no  more  than  was  to 
be  expected.  Whereupon  the  British  public 
took  to  writing  letters  to  the  press.  British 
politicians  take  letters  to  the  press  seriously;  a 
new  man,  the  admiral  we  have  been  talking  of, 
was  sent  to  take  charge  of  the  district. 

He  got  down  to  business.     He  fitted  out  a 


1 84         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

30-knot  despatch-boat  and  away  he  went ! 
All  along  that  coast  he  pounced  in  on  little 
harbors  where  mine-sweepers  should  be  found 
working  outside,  but  where  he  found  them 
working  mostly  inside  at  little  sociable  gather- 
ings where  was  a  dance  or  the  like  going  on 
in  front  and  a  little  something  nourishing  to 
drink  in  back.  Our  stern  and  efficient  admiral 
lit  into  them  like  a  gull  into  a  school  of  herring. 
Out  by  their  gills  he  hauled  them,  and  pretty 
soon  the  B.  P.  began  to  read  less  of  percentages 
and  more  of  results. 

One  of  the  first  results  was  that  some 
trawler  skippers  lost  their  jobs,  and  new  skip- 
pers took  their  places.  This  was  at  the  time 
that  rewards  of  five  pounds  or  so  were  offered 
the  skippers  bringing  a  mine  into  port. 

That  five  pounds  looked  pretty  good  to  one 
of  the  new  skippers;  and  when  one  night  at  a 
pub  a  discharged  skipper  confided  to  him  where 
there  was  a  nest  of  German  mines,  out  he  goes 
into  the  gray  dawn  to  be  there  first.  He's  there 
first,  and  sure  enough  it's  a  grand  little  spot 
for  mines.  He  hooks  into  one,  lashes  it  under 
his  quarter  and  goes  scooting  back  to  harbor, 
which  happens  to  be  the  naval  base. 


FLOTILLA  HUMOR— ASHORE     185 

Proudly  and  noisily  he  steamed  along, 
shouting  to  everybody  he  met  of  his  good  luck, 
and  asking  the  course  to  the  admiral's  ship. 
Everybody  he  met  gave  him  the  course  and 
also  the  full  width  of  the  channel  as  he  passed. 
He  ran  alongside  the  flag-ship,  hailing  loudly 
for  the  admiral  as  he  steamed  up. 

The  admiral  was  not  on  board,  but  his  aide 
was,  and  the  aide  came  on  to  have  a  look  over 
the  side.  He  saw  the  mine  bouncing  up  and 
down  between  the  mine-sweeper's  quarter  and 
his  own  ship's  side.  Shove  off" — "get  away 
from  us  !"  yelled  the  aide.  "Suppose  you  press 
one  of  those  little  feelers  and  blow  us  all  to 
pieces — get  away,  I  tell  you  !" 

The  mine-sweeper  skipper  looked  up — 
"Feelers,  sir?" — and  then  looked  down  at 
the  mine.  "Feelers,  sir .f*  Oh-h,  you  mean 
them  little  'oms  stickin'  out  on  'er  ?  Bly-mee, 
sir,  I  thought  I'd  knocked  'em  all  hoff'  afore 
I  lashed  her  alongside.  But  'ave  no  fear,  sir, 
there's  only  two  of  'em  left,  and  I'll  bloomin' 
well  soon" — he  reaches  for  an  oar  and  went 
bouncing  aft — "bloomin'  well  soon  knock  them 
hoflF,  too,  sir!" 


THE  UNQUENCHABLE  DESTROYER 
BOYS 

ONE  day  last  summer  a  group  of  our  de- 
stroyers were  sent  across  the  Atlantic. 
It  was  a  night-and-day  strain  for  all 
hands — watching  out  for  raiders,  watching  out 
for  U-boats,  watching  out  for  everything,  and 
grabbing  snatches  of  sleep  when  they  could. 

Arriving  at  their  naval  base,  every  skipper 
of  the  little  fleet  felt  pretty  well  used  up.  But 
every  worth-while  skipper  thinks  first  of  his 
men.  One  we  have  in  mind  passed  the  word 
to  his  crew  that  whoever  cared  to  take  a  run 
ashore  to  stretch  his  legs  and  forget  sea  things 
for  a  while,  why — to  go  to  it.  And  stay  till 
morning  quarters  if  they  wished. 

As  fast  as  they  could  clean  up  and  shift  into 
shore  clothes  they  were  going  over  the  side. 
Our  young  captain  felt  then  that  perhaps  there 
was  a  little  something  coming  to  himself;  so  he 
turned  in,  and  he  was  logging  great  things  in 

the  sleeping  line  when  the  anchor  watch,  who 

186 


THE  DESTROYER  BOYS         187 

was  also  a  signal  quartermaster,  woke  him  up 
with: 

"Signal  from  the  admiralty,  sir." 

"Read  it." 

The  S.  Q.  M.  read  it — an  order  to  proceed  at 
once  to  an  oil  dock  and  take  oil. 

It  was  nine  o'clock  at  night  when  our  skip- 
per had  come  to  moorings.  It  was  now  one  in 
the  morning,  and  he  knew  he  could  have  slept 
for  another  week;  however,  orders  were  to  oil  up. 

He  turned  out  and  mustered  what  remained 
aboard  of  his  crew.  There  were  about  a  dozen. 
He  sent  three  to  the  fire-room,  three  to  the 
engine-room,  one  here,  another  there,  himself 
took  the  wheel,  and  with  his  signal  quartermas- 
ter acting  as  a  sort  of  officer  of  the  deck,  set 
out  to  find  the  oil  dock. 

He  had  never  seen  that  harbor  before  that 
night,  but  he  sheered  close  in  to  every  ship's 
anchor  light  he  saw  and  hailed  for  the  course 
to  the  oil  dock.  Most  of  them  did  not  know, 
but  one  now  and  then  passed  him  a  word  or 
two,  and  so  he  bumped  along  and  by  and  by 
made  the  oil  dock. 

Officers  who  have  business  with  it  will  tell 
you  that  the  naval  organization  of  the  British 


i88         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

is  pretty  complete.  Our  young  skipper  found 
everything  ready  for  him  now.  Men  ashore 
made  fast  his  Hnes,  connected  up  his  pipes, 
filled  his  tanks — all  in  good  order.  Sister  de- 
stroyers were  oiling  up  with  him,  and  with 
tanks  filled  they  all  bumped  their  way  back  to 
moorings,  again  without  sinking  anything  along 
the  way. 

It  was  then  daylight,  and  right  after  break- 
fast they  all  had  to  report  to  the  admiralty,  so 
no  use  trying  to  sleep  any  more.  Arrived  at 
the  admiralty,  the  officer  in  command  compli- 
mented them  on  their  safe  run  across,  and  then 
went  on  to  say  that  of  course  they  had  had  a 
trying  passage,  and  naturally  their  ships,  espe- 
cially engines  and  boilers,  would  have  to  be 
overhauled — all  very  natural  and  proper — and 
of  course  the  needful  time  for  overhauling,  and 
for  officers  and  crew — two,  three,  four  days, 
whatever  it  was — would  be  granted;  but  (they 
knew  the  need)  the  question  was :  How  long  be- 
fore they  would  be  ready  to  go  to  sea } 

The  young  destroyer  commanders  had  dis- 
cussed that  and  other  possibilities  in  the  recep- 
tion-room outside,  so  when  the  senior  of  the 
group  looked  from  one  to  the  other  of  his  col- 


THE  DESTROYER  BOYS         189 

leagues  they  had  only  to  nod,  for  him  to  turn 
to  the  admiral  and  say: 

"We  are  ready  now,  sir." 

Which  remark  should  become  one  of  the  his- 
toric remarks  of  this  war. 

At  this  time — at  the  gates  to  the  North  Sea, 
the  English  Channel,  the  Irish  coast — the  U- 
boats  were  collecting  frightful  toll.  In  the 
Mediterranean  they  were  running  wild.  Five 
ships  from  one  convoy  in  one  day — three  of 
them  big  P.  &  O.  liners — ^was  one  of  their 
records  in  the  Eastern  Mediterranean. 

To  the  natural  question,  Why  haven't  you 
checked  them .?  almost  any  young  British  naval 
officer  felt  hke  saying:  "Check  'em.?  Try  it 
yourself  and  check  'em  !  You  go  out  there  and 
keep  your  ship  zigzagging  full  speed  night  and 
day  for  three  years  and  see  how  you  like  it ! 
Go  out  there  in  rough  weather  and  fog  with 
not  a  minute's  let-up,  and  see  if  you  get  to 
where  the  fall  of  a  bucket  of  a  dark  night  will 
make  you  jump  three  feet  in  the  air  or  not! 
Our  ships  were  not  built,  and  our  chaps  were 
not  trained,  to  beat  their  rotten  game." 

So  things  were  when  our  fellows  took  hold, 
and  hearing  no  word  from  them  for  a  long  time 


I90         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

and  then  but  a  meagre  one,  it  may  be  that 
many  a  citizen  on  this  side  was  saying  to  him- 
self: 

"Well,  they're  gone,  that  little  flotilla,  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  mists  of  the  Atlantic,  and  that 
is  all  we  know  about  them.  And  now  I  wonder 
what  they're  doing  over  there  ?  Are  they  doing 
great  work  or  are  they  tied  up  to  a  dock  at  the 
naval  base,  and  their  officers  and  crews  roister- 
ing ashore  ?" 

I  can  say  from  several  weeks'  observation 
later  that  they  were  not  doing  too  much  rois- 
tering ashore.  Before  leaving  this  side  I  found 
no  evidence  that  anybody  in  Washington 
wished  to  suppress  the  record  of  what  that  lit- 
tle fleet  was  doing.  Secretary  Daniels  and 
Chairman  Creel  of  the  Committee  on  Public 
Information  believed  with  me  that  our  little 
fellows  over  there  were  doing  things  worth  re- 
cording. This  fact  is  set  down  here  because 
many  people  last  summer  beheved  there  was 
too  much  suppression  of  the  news  of  our  fight- 
ing forces;  and  suspicion  of  suppression  breeds 
distrust.  Our  fellows  perhaps  were  not  doing 
well.  If  they  were  doing  well,  wouldn't  we  be 
told  more  ^ 


THE  DESTROYER  BOYS         191 

But  they  have  ideas  of  their  own  on  these 
matters  over  on  the  other  side,  and  it  is  the 
other  side  which  has  most  to  say  of  what  shall 
or  shall  not  be  given  out  for  publication.  In  a 
previous  chapter  I  have  reported  the  answer  of 
the  British  admiral  in  charge  to  my  request  to 
be  allowed  to  cruise  on  an  American  destroyer. 
The  reply  was  a  flat  and  immediate:  *'No. 
They  did  not  allow  British  writers  on  British 
ships;  why  should  they  allow  an  American 
writer  on  an  American  ship  ?" 

It  had  to  be  explained  that  despite  what  they 
allowed  or  did  not  allow,  English  papers  did 
publish  praiseful  items  about  the  deeds  of  the 
British  navy;  and  even  if  they  did  not  publish 
such  items,  conditions  governing  pubHcity  in 
the  United  States  and  the  British  Isles  were 
not  equal.  The  British  navy  was  a  tremen- 
dous one  and  it  was  operating  just  off  their 
own  shores;  officers  and  men  were  regularly 
going  ashore  by  the  thousands  and  to  their 
friends  and  families,  if  to  nobody  else,  they 
talked  of  what  was  going  on;  and  it  does  not 
take  long  for  thousands  of  bluejackets  to  spread 
the  gossip  in  a  country  where  no  spot  in  it  is 
more  than  forty  miles  from  tide-water,  whereas 


192         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

our  nearest  Atlantic  ports  were  three  thousand 
miles  from  our  base  of  operations  in  Europe, 
and  it  was  another  three  thousand  miles  to  our 
west  coast. 

It  also  had  to  be  pumped  into  the  admiralty 
over  there  that  possibly  the  American  and 
British  publics  did  not  hold  to  quite  the  same 
ideas  about  their  respective  navies.  It  was 
possible  that  the  110,000,000  people  of  the 
United  States  looked  on  our  navy  as  not  alto- 
gether the  property  of  the  officers  and  men  in 
it;  possibly  our  110,000,000  people  over  here 
looked  on  the  navy  as  their  navy,  that  they 
had  a  right  to  know  something  of  what  it  was 
doing;  and  so  (this  item  had  to  be  pointed  out 
to  one  of  our  own  topside  officers,  too)  as  that 
same  pubhc  were  paying  the  bills  of  the  navy, 
no  harm  perhaps  to  let  them  in  on  a  few  things 
or,  this  being  the  twentieth  century,  they  might 
take  it  into  their  heads  some  day  to  have  no 
navy  at  all. 

It  took  the  foregoing  talk  and  something 
more  before  I  could  get  the  permission  of  the 
British  Admiralty  to  cruise  on  one  of  our  own 
destroyers  over  there.  This  isn't  so  much  a 
criticism  of  the  British  Admiralty  as  to  show 


THE  DESTROYER  BOYS         193 

that  their  point  of  view  differs  from  ours;  and 
to  show  that  it  was  not  Washington  which  was 
holding  up  news  of  our  navy  over  there. 

As  to  what  they  have  been  doing!  They 
have  been  doing  great  work.  I  cruised  over 
there  on  one  of  our  destroyers.  She  was  five 
years  old,  yet  one  day  during  an  85-mile  run 
to  answer  an  S  O  S  call  she  exceeded  her 
builder's  trial  by  half  a  knot.  Incidentally,  she 
saved  a  merchantman  which  had  been  shelled 
for  four  hours  by  a  U-boat  and  her  $3,000,000 
cargo;  also  she  ran  the  U-boat  under — one  of 
the  new  big  U-boats  with  two  5.9  deck  guns. 
On  the  same  day  two  other  destroyers  of  our 
group  took  from  a  sinking  liner  503  passengers 
without  the  loss  of  a  life.  One  of  these  de- 
stroyers lashed  herself  to  the  sinking  ship  the 
more  quickly  to  get  them  off;  and  as  the  liner 
went  down  our  little  ship  had  to  use  her  emer- 
gency steam  to  get  away  in  time.  A  fourth 
destroyer  of  ours  got  the  U-boat  which  sank 
the  liner.  That  was  the  record  of  one  little 
group  of  destroyers  in  one  day;  and  it  is  de- 
tailed here  because  the  writer  happened  to  be 
present  when  these  things  happened. 

When  our  fellows  first  went  over  they  had  to 


194         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

learn  a  few  things  from  the  British.  We  had 
first  to  get  rid  of  some  childish  ideas  about 
depth  charges.  We  brought  over  a  toy  size  of 
50  to  60  pounds.  They  showed  us  a  man's 
size  one — 300  pounds  of  T  N  T,  a  contraption 
looking  so  much  like  a  galvanized  iron  ash- 
barrel  with  flattened  sides  that  they  call  them 
ash-cans. 

These  ash-cans  do  not  have  actually  to  hit 
the  U-boat;  to  explode  one  anywhere  near  is 
enough.  When  our  fellows  let  go  one  of  them, 
the  ship  has  to  be  going  25  knots  to  be  safe. 
One  of  our  destroyers  was  making  il  knots  one 
night — the  best  she  could  do  under  the  weather 
conditions — and  an  ash-can  was  washed  over- 
board by  a  heavy  sea.  Our  destroyer's  stern 
came  so  near  to  being  blown  off  that  her  crew 
thought  sure  she  was  gone;  she  had  to  feel  the 
rest  of  the  way  most  carefully  to  port. 

This  U-boat  hunting  has  been  found  so 
wearing  on  men's  nerves  that  the  British  Ad- 
miralty has  a  law  that  our  destroyers  must  re- 
main in  port  after  every  cruise  for  periods  that 
average  about  two-thirds  of  their  time  at  sea. 
Once  our  destroyers  are  back  to  port  and  tied 
up  to  moorings,  a  U-boat  might  come  up  and 


THE  DESTROYER   BOYS         195 

sink  a  ship  at  the  harbor  entrance  and  our  fel- 
lows not  allowed  to  up-steam  and  at  'em.  It 
was  only  after  a  hard  experience  against  U- 
boats  that  they  evolved  this  law  to  save  men 
from  breaking  down. 

It  is  a  dangerous,  hard  service  on  one  of  the 
roughest  coasts  in  the  world — a  coast  where 
for  seven  months  or  so  in  the  year  wind  and 
sea  and  strong  cross  tides  seem  to  be  their 
daily  diet;  a  service  where  for  days  on  a  stretch 
it  is  nothing  at  all  for  destroyer  crews  not  to  be 
able  to  take  a  meal  sitting  down,  not  even  in 
chairs  lashed  to  stanchions  and  one  arm  free 
hooked  around  a  stanchion;  a  service  where 
officers  live  jammed  up  in  the  eyes  of  the  ship 
and  never  think  at  sea  of  taking  off  their  clothes, 
and  where  they  sleep  (when  they  do  sleep) 
mostly  by  snatches  on  chart-house  or  ward- 
room transoms. 

And  for  watches:  eight  hours  in  every  twenty- 
four,  night  and  day  watching  of  their  convoy, 
of  their  colleagues,  of  periscopes.  (The  pros- 
pect of  collision  with  their  close-packed  con- 
voy and  themselves  is  a  bad  chance  in  itself.) 
On  a  destroyer  convoying  ships  the  officer  of 
the  deck  has  to  stand  with  one  eye  to  the  com- 


196         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

pass  ordering,  say,  two  hundred  changes  of 
course  in  every  hour.  And  one  watch-officer 
of  every  destroyer  has  the  extra  job  of  acting 
as  chief  engineer  of  the  ship;  and  when  a  watch- 
officer  had  to  go  aboard  a  torpedoed  ship,  or  to 
go  in  the  crow's  nest  in  a  critical  time,  to  spend 
hours,  it  may  be,  the  time  so  spent  is  in  addi- 
tion to  his  regular  eight  hours. 

If  he  is  the  executive  officer  he  must  also 
act  as  navigator;  and  as  it  is  important  to 
know  just  where  the  ship  is  any  moment  of 
the  day  or  night,  the  navigator  does  not  figure 
on  sleep  in  any  long  stretches.  About  twenty 
waking  hours  out  of  twenty-four  is  his  portion. 
As  for  the  skipper:  Every  single  waking  hour 
of  his  is  a  heavy  strain.  I  went  to  sea  with 
the  commander  of  the  alert,  intense  type. 
Most  of  them  are  of  that  type,  but  this  one 
particularly  so,  with  eyes,  ears,  nerves,  and 
brain  working  always  at  full  power.  Three 
hours  in  twenty-four  was  a  pretty  good  lay-off 
for  him. 

Lively.?  Our  destroyers  are  about  ii^ 
times  as  long  as  they  are  wide;  which  does  not 
mean  that  they  cannot  keep  the  sea.  They 
can  keep  the  sea.     Put  one  of  them  stem-on  to 


THE  DESTROYER  BOYS         197 

a  90-mile  breeze  and  all  the  sea  to  go  with  it, 
give  her  5  or  6  knots  an  hour  head  of  steam, 
and  she  will  stay  there  till  the  ocean  is  blown 
dry.  But  they  are  engined  out  of  all  propor- 
tion to  their  tonnage,  with  their  great  weight 
of  machinery  deep  down;  which  means  that 
they  roll.  Oh,  but  they  do  roll !  Whoopo — 
down  and  back  like  that !  Most  any  of  them 
will  make  a  complete  roll  inside  of  six  seconds. 
Ours  was  a  5X-second  one.  When  she  got  to 
rolHng  right,  she  would  snap  a  careless  sailor 
overboard  as  quickly  as  you  could  snap  a  bug 
off  the  end  of  a  whalebone  cane.  There  is  one 
over  there  which  rolled  73  degrees — and  came 
back. 

Take  one  of  them  when  she  is  hiking  along 
at  20  knots,  rolling  from  45  to  50  degrees, 
and  just  about  filHng  the  whaleboat  swinging 
to  the  skid  deck  davits  as  she  rolls !  See  one 
dive  and  take  a  sea  over  her  fo'c's'le  head  and 
smash  in  her  chart-house  bulkhead  maybe ! 
Their  outer  skin  is  only  Ke  of  an  inch  thick. 
See  that  thin  skin  give  to  the  sea  like  a  lace 
fan  to  a  breeze !  Watch  the  deck  crawl  till 
sometimes  the  deck-plates  buckle  up  into  V- 
shaped  ridges !     See  them  with  the  seas  slosh- 


198         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

ing  up  their  low  freeboard  and  over  their  narrow 
decks,  so  that  men  have  to  make  use  of  a  sort 
of  trolley  line  to  get  about.  A  man  is  aft  and 
has  to  go  forward,  say.  He  hooks  onto  a  rope 
loop,  the  same  hanging  from  a  fore-and-aft  taut 
steel  line  about  seven  feet  above  deck,  and  when 
her  stern  rises  he  lifts  his  feet  and  shoots  and 
fetches  up  Bam  !— up  against  the  fo'c's'le  break. 
He  is  forward  and  wants  to  go  aft — he  hooks 
onto  the  loop,  waits  for  her  bow  to  rise,  lets 
himself  go  and  there-  he  is — back  to  her  skid 
deck. 

That  sounds  like  rough  work.  Sometimes 
it  gets  rougher  than  that,  and  then  you  hear 
of  the  wireless  operator  who  was  held  in  his 
radio  shack  for  forty  hours.  He  got  pretty 
hungry,  but  he  preferred  the  hunger  to  coming 
out  and  being  washed  overboard. 

But  let  a  machinist's  mate  tell  you  in  his 
own  way  of  the  night  he  was  standing  a  fire- 
room  watch — this  with  all  due  respect  to  the 
chart-house  bulkhead,  the  trolley  line,  the 
buckling  decks,  and  the  radio  operator  who 
was  confined — this  night  he  was  on  watch  in 
the  fire-room.  Was  it  rough  ?  He  thought  so. 
When  he  looked  down  at  his  feet,  there  were 


THE  DESTROYER  BOYS         199 

the  fire-room  deck-plates   folding  in   and   out 
like  a  concertina. 

Destroyer  crews  do  not  loaf  overmuch 
around  deck.  They  can't.  They  live  below 
decks  mostly,  strapped  in  when  it  is  rough  to  a 
stretch  of  canvas  laced  to  four  pieces  of  iron 
pipe,  set  on  an  angle  down  against  the  ship's 
sides,  and  called  a  bunk.  Even  strapped  in  so 
they  are  sometimes,  when  she  has  a  good  streak 
on,  hove  out  into  the  passagewaj^s.  It  was  a 
young  doctor  of  the  flotilla  who  said  that,  ex- 
cept for  their  broken  arms  and  legs,  his  ship's 
crew  were  disgustingly  healthy. 

Our  officers  over  there  volunteer  for  this  ser- 
vice, and  for  every  one  who  went,  there  were  a 
dozen  who  wanted  to  go.  And  there  is  a  lot 
of  difference  between  men  who  go  to  a  duty 
because  they  are  ordered  to  go,  and  men  who 
go  because  they  want  to  go.  These  officers 
and  men — there  is  no  beating  them,  except  by 
blowing  them  off  the  face  of  the  waters.  And 
even  then  they  are  not  always  beaten.  One  of 
our  destroyers  was  cut  down  one  night  by  col- 
lision. (With  so  many  ships  being  crowded 
into  a  small  steaming  area,  collisions  are  sure 
to   happen.)     All   hands   had   to   take   to   the 


200         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

rafts  In  a  hurry.  It  was  about  two  in  the 
morning,  one  of  those  summer  nights  in  the 
North  when  the  light  comes  early.  They 
watched  her  going  under.  Her  deck  settled 
level  with  the  sea,  and  as  it  did  so  a  young 
irrepressible  one  sang  out:  "What  do  you  say, 
fellows,  to  having  a  race  around  the  old  girl 
before  she  flops  under.?"  Away  they  started, 
four  or  five  gangs  of  them,  paddling  their  life 
rafts  with  their  hands  around  the  sinking  ship 
at  two  in  the  morning. 

That  is  youth;  and  there  Is  no  beating  youth. 
We  have  had  stories  of  our  soldiers  singing  a 
song  that  has  become  very  popular  since  we 
entered  the  war.  We  have  been  told  of  them 
singing  it  under  the  most  varying  conditions: 
as  they  camped  on  the  granite  blocks  of  the 
Hoboken  water-front;  as  they  climbed  over  the 
gangways  of  ships  bound  across;  debarking 
from  ships  in  European  ports;  singing  it  from 
behind  the  drawn  shades  of  coaches  rolling 
across  France.  There  were  even  those  who 
sang  It  while  waiting  to  step  into  the  life-boats 
on  a  torpedoed  troop-ship;  but  for  light-hearted 
courage  has  any  one  beaten  that  destroyer  lad 
who  was  torpedoed  one  night  last  winter  ? 


THE   DESTROYER  BOYS         201 

When  the  torpedo  struck  his  ship  the  two 
depth  charges  astern  were  exploded  also.  Two 
300-pound  charges  of  T  N  T  they  were.  The 
little  ship  seemed  to  be  lifted  out  of  the  water. 
There  was  just  time  to  throw  over  a  few  life 
rafts  and  take  a  high  dive  after  the  rafts. 
There  was  no  time  to  get  an  S  0  S  message 
away  before  the  ship  went  down;  so  there  they 
were — a  November  night  in  northern  waters, 
more  than  half  their  crew  known  to  be  dead, 
their  ship  sunk,  no  other  ship  near  and  no  hope 
of  one  coming  near.  It  was  about  as  tough  a 
case  as  men  could  be  expected  to  face  and  hope 
to  live.  But  there  was  a  boy  there — he  was 
jouncing  up  and  down  in  the  water  to  keep 
warm,  and  jouncing  up  and  down  he  was  sing- 
ing (from  out  of  the  dark  they  heard  him), 
singing  cheerfully: 

"O  boy,  O  boy,  where  do  we  go  from  herel'* 

It  is  the  thing  spoken  of  in  the  early  part  of 
this  book.  Material  is  a  great  thing;  but  per- 
sonnel has  it  beaten  a  dozen  ways.  Paul  Jones 
with  his  capable  seagoers  in  his  little  sloop-of- 
war  could  raise  the  devil  with  the  enemy. 
Paul  Jones  with  a  line  of  battleships  and  forty 


202         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

crews  of  men  without  spirit  would  not  have 
caused  them  ten  minutes'  loss  of  sleep.  That 
singing  lad  in  northern  waters  was  worth  a 
dozen  guns. 

Our  destroyers  went  over  there  at  a  time 
when  the  U-boats  were  sinking  more  'tonnage 
in  one  month  than  Great  Britain  was  building 
in  four;  and  because  of  U-boat  activities  the 
loss  of  ships  in  the  usual  marine  ways  was  far 
beyond  normal.  To  the  weary  British  our  fel- 
lows brought  a  fresh  vigor,  a  new  aggressive- 
ness. 

Only  half  a  dozen  were  in  that  first  group, 
but  other  groups  followed,  and  groups  are  still 
following.  They  have  not  driven  the  U-boats 
from  under  the  seas,  but  they  have  made  it 
possible  for  merchant  ships  to  live  in  that  part 
of  the  ocean  they  are  covering. 

Somebody  has  broken  into  print  somewhere 
to  say  that  Germany  has  trouble  getting  U- 
boat  crews;  that  men  have  to  be  driven  into 
U-boats  to  man  them.  What  a  queer  idea  of 
human  courage  people  who  say  such  things 
have !  There  are  always  volunteers,  probably 
always  will  be — plenty  of  volunteers  for  any 
dangerous  serivce.     If  the  U-boat  crews  were 


THE   DESTROYER  BOYS         203 

the  kind  that  have  to  be  driven  to  sea,  there 
would  be  no  great  harm  in  them.  But  they 
are  not  that  kind.  They  have  courage,  and 
they  have  skill,  and  because  they  have  courage 
and  skill  they  are  dangerous. 

After  a  year  of  the  U-boat  drive  England 
saw  a  danger  of  being  some  day  starved  out; 
and  with  England  starved  out,  our  army  might 
as  well  have  stayed  on  this  side  last  summer; 
but  though  the  drive  is  still  on,  England  is  not 
yet  starved  out,  for  much  of  which  comfort 
they  can  thank  the  ofl&cers  and  men  of  our  lit- 
tle destroyer  flotilla. 

At  a  time  when  England  was  worn  and 
weary  with  the  U-boat  game,  our  fellows  went 
over  to  hearten  them  up;  and  they  are  still 
heartening  them  up;  and,  besides  heartening 
them  up,  they  are  getting  the  U-boats  regu- 
larly. How  many  they  are  getting  I  could  not 
say,  even  if  I  knew;  but  one  of  our  vice-admirals 
has  publicly  stated  that  they  once  got  five  in 
one  day.  And  with  malice  toward  none,  let  us 
hope  for  more  days  like  it. 


THE  MARINES  HAVE  LANDED- 


IT  was  a  little  girl  at  home,  not  old  enough 
to  read  long  words,  but  able  to  read  a  pic- 
ture, as  she  put  it;  and  there  was  a  print 
of  a  company  of  marines  leaving  one  of  our 
navy-yards,  and  she  said:  "The  marine  soldiers 
going  away — more  trouble  somewheres,  isn't 
there,  papa?" 

Which  caused  her  papa  to  recall  that  from 
where  he  was  born  and  lived  the  first  years  of 
his  life  he  had  only  to  look  out  of  his  top  win- 
dow and  across  the  harbor  to  see  a  big  navy- 
yard;  and  while  he  was  still  too  young  to  read 
a  paper,  he  had  seen  marines  boarding  ships 
and  marching  off  to  trains;  and  just  as  sure  as 
he  did  the  older  people  would  read  from  that 
night's  or  next  morning's  paper  of  trouble  some- 
where abroad. 

And  always  they  went  without  any  fuss. 
Most  of  us  would  have  more  to  say  about 
going  to  the  office  of  a  snowy  morning  than  do 
the    marines    on    leaving    for    some    far-away 

country,  from  where,  as  they  know  by  past 

204 


MARINES  HAVE  LANDED 205 

records  of  the  corps,  quite  a  few  of  them  are 
never  coming  back.  They  were  the  original 
efficiency  boys.  They  slung  their  rifles,  hooked 
on  their  packs  and  went;  and  that  ended  that 
part  of  it. 

But  after  they  were  gone  people  living  near 
naval  quarters  waited  for  the  next  word;  and 
that  next  word  so  often  came  in  the  form  of 
one  laconic  sentence,  the  same  cabled  back 
by  the  topside  naval  officer  or  some  American 
consul,  that  we  used  to  wonder  if  they  had  a 
rubber  stamp  for  it — that  laconic,  reassuring 
sentence !  When  our  country  erects  a  memo- 
rial structure  to  the  United  States  Marine 
Corps,  she  should  chisel  over  the  main  front: 


The  Marines  Have  Landed   and  Have  the 
Situation  Well  in  Hand 


Landed  in  some  tropic  port  with  some  hard- 
pronouncing  name,  they  have,  shoving  off 
from  the  ship's  side  with  their  rifles  and  their 
packs,  to  get  a  toe-hold  somewhere  against  two, 
five,  ten  times  their  number  blazing  away  at 
them  from  behind  sand-hills,  or  roof-tops,  or  a 
fine  growth  of  jungle,  it  may  be. 


2o6         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

The  others  are  not  always  as  well  equipped 
as  our  fellows  and  they  may  have  no  advance 
supply-base;  but  they  know  how  to  campaign. 
South  of  us  are  multitudes  who  will  take  a  bag 
of  corn,  a  water-bottle,  and  a  pair  of  straw 
sandals  and  go  shuffling  over  the  hill  trails  for 
forty  or  fifty  miles  a  day.  And  don't  think 
they  won't  fight.  They  will.  In  countries 
where  boys  of  twelve  and  thirteen  pack  a  gun 
and  go  off  with  their  fathers  in  the  army,  they 
probably  do  not  worry  overmuch  about  dying 
early. 

From  their  retreats  they  like  to  sally  forth 
at  intervals  and  have  a  wallop  at  our  fellows. 
There  was  a  corporal  in  Haiti,  on  outpost,  with 
half  a  dozen  loyal  natives  acting  as  policemen 
with  him.  The  native  guards  slept  in  barracks 
by  themselves;  our  marine  in  a  little  low  shack 
set  up  on  posts  a  hundred  yards  away,  with  a 
native  who  acted  as  cook  and  general  helper. 
The  next  outpost  was  six  miles  away. 

A  band  of  outlaws  rushed  the  native  police 
in  their  barracks  at  this  post  one  night,  and 
such  as  they  did  not  shoot  up  they  ran  into 
the  brush.  Our  corporal  was  awakened  from 
sound  slumber  by  the  firing  and  shouting  at 


MARINES  HAVE  LANDED 207 

the  barracks.  A  few  volleys  through  the  sides 
of  his  own  shack  waked  him  up  good.  He 
pulled  on  his  trousers,  taking  time  to  fasten 
them  only  by  one  button  at  his  waist.  There 
was  no  time  for  socks;  he  pulled  on  his  shoes, 
but  had  no  time  to  lace  them.  A  marine  is 
trained  to  be  neat  in  his  attire,  and  so  our 
corporal  apologetically  explained  later  that  he 
had  got  no  farther  than  that  in  his  dressing 
when  he  heard  them  trying  to  burst  in  his  front 
door. 

The  corporal  sent  his  native  cook  to  the  rear 
door,  while  he  fixed  his  bayonet  to  his  rifle  and 
stood  guard  over  the  front  door.  They  had  it 
all  but  stove  in  when  he  began  cutting  loose 
like  three  men  with  his  rifle  through  the  door. 
He  killed  a  man  there. 

They  then  began  to  smash  in  the  window 
nearest  the  door.  He  pried  open  the  window 
with  his  bayonet,  and  got  there  before  them. 
There  was  a  big  black  fellow  at  the  broken 
window.  Our  marine  shot  him  dead,  which 
gave  him  time  to  turn  to  the  side  windov/, 
which  they  had  now  broken  in  with  the  butts 
of  their  rifles.  He  got  one  there.  There  was 
another  close  up  whom  he  hit  but  did  not  kill; 


2o8         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

and  he  dropped  another  one  on  the  edge  of  the 
shadows  outside.  The  cook,  catching  the 
spirit  of  the  thing,  killed  one  at  the  rear  door 
on  his  own  account. 

The  bandits  had  enough,  and  left.  Next 
evening,  when  his  officer  came  along  with  a 
squad,  he  found  our  corporal  with  his  wounded 
underguard,  his  four  dead  ones  in  a  neat  row, 
and  himself  and  his  cook  frying  chicken  in  the 
twilight,  cheerfully  able  to  report  that  he  had 
the  situation  well  in  hand. 

They  are  a  sharpshooting  rifle  outfit.  Down 
in  Vera  Cruz  during  the  late  trouble  a  platoon 
of  marines  were  at  the  foot  of  a  street  leading 
up  from  the  water-front.  They  had  cleaned  up 
things  all  about  them  and  thought  they  were 
in  for  a  rest;  and  they  wanted  their  rest — a 
hot  tropic  day  with  the  heat  rolling  off  the 
asphalt  where  they  lay. 

There  came  a  ping!  of  a  rifle  bullet  among 
them;  and  half  a  minute  or  so  later  another 
ping!  They  watched,  and  up  the  street  they 
saw  the  head,  arm,  and  shoulder  of  a  man  with 
a  rifle  come  poking  around  the  corner  of  a 
building,  and  ping !  another  one,  and  this  time 
one  of  their  men  hit.     A  bad  hombre,  that  one. 


MARINES  HAVE  LANDED 209 

"Get  him!"  said  their  officer,  and  named  two 
of  them  to  get  him. 

The  two  men  lay  down  on  the  asphalt;  and 
when  their  friend  next  poked  his  head  and 
shoulders  around  the  corner,  they  fired.  They 
saw  the  adobe  plaster  spatter  from  a  corner  of 
the  building  just  under  the  man's  chin;  but 
that  wasn't  getting  him.  They  jacked  their 
sights  up  50  yards,  making  it  800  yards;  and 
when  next  the  native  showed  around  the  corner 
they  both  got  him — one  plumb  between  the 
eyes. 

It  was  good  shooting;  but  there  was  no 
special  comment  after  it.  The  talk  would  have 
come  if  they  hadn't  got  him. 

But  it  is  not  always  a  matter  of  fighting  or 
shooting  efficiency.  There  was  that  bad  hom- 
bre,  Juan  Calcano  of  Santo  Domingo — Juan 
the  Terrible,  the  natives  called  him.  Juan  and 
his  gang  had  a  headquarters  in  the  mountains. 
From  there  they  came  riding  down  into  the 
valleys — shooting,  robbing,  standing  quiet  na- 
tives on  their  heads  generally.  Juan  had  quite 
a  little  territory  under  tribute.  He  came  down 
into  La  Ramona,  where  was  a  custom-house 
and  guard.     He  shot  up  the  guards,  took  all 


2IO         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

the  gold  in  the  custom-house,  and  rode  away, 
saying:  "Come  after  me  who  dares!" 

The  marines  did  not  worry  about  the  daring 
part;  but  he  was  too  strongly  intrenched  for  a 
direct  attack.  Your  professional  soldier,  above 
all  men,  prefers  not  to  throw  away  good  men's 
lives.  They  considered  matters;  and  one  day 
they  set  out,  three  marine  officers  and  thirty 
men,  for  Juan's  country.  One  of  those  tropical 
hurricanes  came  along  the  same  day  they 
started,  blew  down  trees,  filled  rivers  to  over 
their  banks,  and  made  them  wade  waist-deep 
in  the  mud  of  the  roads.  It  was  tough  going, 
but  it  had  its  good  side — there  were  not  many 
people  abroad. 

They  arrived  near  the  village  where  Juan 
was  known  to  be.  An  American  marine  would 
not  have  stood  much  chance  to  get  back  if  Juan 
had  known  one  was  around;  but  one  of  the 
officers  rigged  up  as  a  mule  trader  and  went 
looking  for  Juan.  He  found  him,  taking  it 
easy  until  the  roads  after  the  storm  should  be- 
come passable,  and  allow  himself  and  his  men 
to  sashay  into  the  valley  again. 

All  kinds  of  people — white,  and  black,  and 
brown — came  Juan's  way  to  do  business — to 


MARINES  HAVE  LANDED 211 

buy  mules  and  horses,  for  instance.  In  the 
course  of  his  travels  in  the  valley  Juan  had 
helped  himself  to  some  very  fine  mules  and 
horses.  Along  comes  this  man  this  day — 
American,  English,  French,  Spanish,  who 
knows  ?  Or  cares  ?  He  talked  money — cash 
— for  a  good  pair  of  mules.  No  old  spavined 
creatures,  but  young,  strong,  sound  ones. 

Yes,  Juan  had  just  such  a  pair  of  mules. 
Oh,  a  superb  young  pair!  He  would  see. 
Truly  yes.  Would  the  stranger  serior  come 
into  his  house  so  that  Juan  might  speak  more 
confidentially  of  them?  The  stranger  would. 
And  did.  But  before  Juan  could  unload  all  he 
had  to  say  about  his  mules  the  mule  buyer 
drew  a  large  service  automatic  and  slipped 
Juan  out  to  where  thirty-two  marines,  officers 
and  men,  were  in  hiding.  And  they  put  Juan 
in  jail,  and  all  it  cost  was  one  mule — not  Juan's 
— drowned  while  crossing  a  stream  during  the 
hurricane. 

The  marines  have  a  great  fighting  record; 
but  the  marines  do  more  than  fight.  After  all, 
men  cannot  be  handhng  rifle  and  bayonet  every 
waking  minute — they  would  become  abnormal 
creatures  if  they  did,  of  use  only  in  war  time; 


212         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

and  it  would  be  a  terrible  world  if  war  were 
our  end  and  aim.  The  marines  get  aviation, 
search-light,  wireless,  telegraphic,  heliograph, 
and  other  signal  drill.  They  plant  mines,  put 
up  telegraph  and  telephone  lines  in  the  field, 
tear  down  or  build  up  bridges,  sling  from  a  ship 
and  set  up  or  land  guns  as  big  as  5-inch  for 
their  advance  base  work. 

It  is  a  belief  with  marines  that  the  corps  can 
do  anything.  Right  in  New  York  City  is  a 
marine  printing  plant  with  a  battery  of  lino- 
types and  a  row  of  presses.  They  set  their 
own  type,  write  their  own  stuff  (even  to  the 
poetry),  draw  their  own  sketches,  do  their 
own  photography,  their  own  color  work — 
everything.  Every  man  in  that  plant  is  a 
marine,  enlisted  or  commissioned.  Every  one 
has  seen  service  somewhere  outside  his  country. 

One  was  in  a  tropic  country  one  time  after 
an  all-night  march  to  a  river  where  the  ferry 
was  a  water-soaked  bamboo  raft.  They  had 
to  wait  until  some  native  might  happen  along 
with  a  bull — or  it  might  be  a  cow — to  tow  the 
raft  across.  After  crossing  the  river  twice  in 
that  day,  the  young  marine  commander  halted 
on  the  bank  and  said:  **That's  sure  not  cross- 


MARINES  HAVE  LANDED 213 

ing  in  a  hurry  if  we  had  to.  Might's  well  go  to 
it  and  build  a  bridge  right  now." 

They  cut  down  trees,  got  a  portable  pile- 
driver  from  their  transport,  rigged  it  up  and 
set  to  work.  They  hoisted  the  hammer — a 
good  heavy  one — and  let  it  drop.  Bam !  she 
struck,  and  into  the  mud  for  about  two  feet 
went  the  pile.  Fine !  They  hoisted  the  ham- 
mer again — four  men  hauling  on  pulley  blocks 
did  the  hoisting — and  let  her  go  again.  This 
time  instead  of  a  fine  bam !  the  hammer  went 
a  fine  splasho !  into  the  river.  The  great  heat 
and  dampness  of  the  place  had  warped  the 
runways;  almost  every  other  time  they  let 
that  hammer  drop,  it  jumped  the  runways  and 
into  the  river. 

But  that  was  all  right.  They  could  fish  her 
out  and  hoist  her  up  by  man  power  again.  It 
was  when  they  left  the  solid  bank  and  had  to 
put  out  into  the  river  that  their  troubles  began. 
A  pile-driver  ought  to  have  a  pretty  solid  foun- 
dation. Ought  to  have !  They  took  two  dug- 
out canoes,  lashed  them  together,  put  a  bam- 
boo deck  across,  set  their  pile-driver  on  the 
deck  and  turned  to  again.  It  made  a  kind  of 
a  wabbly  base;  besides  hauling  the  hzmmer 


214         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

out  every  time  it  jumped  into  the  river,  they 
had  to  see  that  it  didn't  come  bouncing  down 
atop  of  their  own  heads  or  through  the  canoe 
deck.  However,  they  were  getting  action. 
They  finished  driving  the  piles  and  setting  up 
the  stringers. 

For  their  bridge  floor  they  laid  down  wood 
shingles,  and  over  that  a  mat  made  out  of 
woven  bamboo  strips.  For  a  top  deck  .?  Well, 
it  was  a  coral  island  and  the  roads  of  that 
country  were  of  pounded  coral;  they  put  a  top 
dressing  of  pounded  coral  across  the  bridge. 

And  then  the  young  marine  commander 
looked  her  over  and  figured  on  the  dimensions 
of  his  struts  and  stringers,  and  said:  "Some 
class !  She'll  stand  a  two-ton  load."  And  then 
along  came  a  steam-roller  from  off  the  trans- 
port, and  the  roller  weighed  five  tons  and  it 
was  important  that  it  be  passed  across.  "Go 
ahead,"  said  the  marine  commander — "only  I 
hope  you  can  swim!"  And  they  all  camped 
on  the  bank  to  watch.  The  steam-roller  man 
was  an  optimist  and  a  literary  person:  "You 
may  have  builded  better  than  you  know,  cap- 
tain!" The  bridge  settled  down  another  foot, 
but  the  roller  got  across,  and  back  and  over 


MARINES  HAVE  LANDED 215 

many  more  times;  which  set  the  younger  ma- 
rines to  standing  on  the  bank  and  saying: 
"That's  us — bridge  builders!" 

The  fight  in  the  shack,  the  capture  of  Cal- 
cano,  the  sharpshooting  at  Vera  Cruz,  the 
building  of  that  coral-floored  bridge,  are  not 
set  down  here  as  wonderful  stunts.  They  are 
set  down  because  the  writer  happened  to  bump 
into  them  during  a  casual  hour's  inspection  of 
their  records.  Scores  of  more  heroic  or  in- 
genious samples  could  be  served  up  by  any- 
body who  cared  to  dig  deep  into  the  records. 
These  are  detailed  here,  because  they  could  be 
briefly  told  and  at  the  same  time  show  the  ma- 
rine's characteristic  quahties:  courage,  ingenu- 
ity, technic,  and  industry. 

Here  we  might  mention  that  it  is  not  in  itself 
an  act  of  war  to  land  marines  on  foreign  soil. 
It  was  sending  ashore  the  bluejackets  at  Vera 
Cruz  that  made  it  an  act  of  war.  To  protect 
American  lives  and  property  in  Nicaragua  a 
battalion  of  marines  landed  there  a  few  years 
ago.  They  had  some  sharp  fighting,  but  it 
was  not  an  act  of  war.  Do  you  begin  to  see 
him  as  a  diplomatic  asset  ?  And  perhaps  why 
all  this  landing  action  comes  his  way }    Most 


2i6         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

of  us  have  probably  forgotten  the  details  of 
that  Nicaraguan  landing;  but — unless  they 
have  been  jacked  out  lately — a  company  of 
those  marines  are  still  there,  looking  out  for 
American  interests.  Only  a  company,  but  still 
hanging  on. 

Courage,  ingenuity,  industry — they  need 
them  all.  Most  of  us  will  probably  have  to 
stop  to  remember  that  the  marines  who  landed 
in  Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo  are  still  there. 
And  running  things  in  their  usual  efficient  fash- 
ion. There  was  the  usual  fighting  to  get  a  toe- 
hold, the  usual  fighting  to  retain  place,  the 
usual  establishing  of  outposts,  with  the  usual 
killed  and  wounded  already  probably  forgotten 
by  most  of  us.  Perhaps  they  are  too  far  away 
to  make  absorbing  newspaper  items;  perhaps  it 
is  the  Big  War  overshadowing  all  else. 

In  Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo  it  was  the  old 
story  of  political  factions,  each  faction  having 
its  own  little  gang  of  fighting  men  till  our  fel- 
lows came  in  and  ran  most  of  them  into  the 
hills.  When  the  marines  took  charge  they 
found  that  pretty  much  everything  on  the 
island  had  gone  to  wrack.  As,  for  instance, 
under  the  old  French  regime  there  had  been 


MARINES  HAVE  LANDED 217 

some  splendid  roads  in  Haiti,  but  now  they 
were  hardly  more  than  sewers  in  the  towns  and 
a  drainage  for  the  hill  slopes  of  the  country. 

The  marines  repaired  the  roads;  not  always 
using  the  picks  and  shovels  themselves,  but 
seeing  to  it  that  somebody  did,  paying  a  living 
wage  for  such  work  to  the  natives.  Sometimes 
bandits — who  are  quite  often  gentle  creatures 
when  out  of  training — captured  bandits  were 
allowed  to  quit  jail  to  do  useful  work  in  this 
line.  The  marines  installed  sanitary  methods, 
saw  that  courts  of  justice  were  resumed,  marine 
officers  themselves  serving  as  justices  until 
they  found  natives  who  could  do  that  service. 
Likewise  they  collected  and  disbursed  taxes. 

Above  all,  they  did  away  with  the  old  reign 
of  terror,  when  no  man's  Hfe  was  safe  if  he 
happened  to  be  on  the  wrong  side.  When  the 
bandits  were  running  around  unchecked,  it 
was  not  safe  for  a  whole  family  to  go  to  mar- 
ket together.  Generally  the  women  went  to 
sell  their  little  produce,  while  the  men  stayed 
behind  to  guard  the  little  property  at  home. 
Now — the  natives  speak  of  the  wonder  of  it — 
the  roads  on  market-days  are  crowded  with 
both  men  and  women. 


2i8         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

At  first  they  had  distrust  of  the  marine;  not 
altogether  because  he  was  a  foreigner  (the 
tropical  people  probably  are  less  distrustful  of 
us  than  we  of  them) — he  was  an  armed  soldier. 
But  they  learned  to  know  him,  and  now  the 
native  salutes  and  smiles  without  effort  at  the 
marine  in  passing.  When  one  particular  ma- 
rine officer  left  there  to  come  home  recently, 
crowds  of  native  men,  women,  and  children 
came  down,  some  to  weep,  but  all  to  wish  him 
Godspeed  in  going. 

The  marine  is  sometimes  termed  soldier  and 
sailor  too,  which  is  not  correct.  He  is  not  a 
sailor  and  does  not  claim  to  be.  When  not 
in  barracks  ashore  he  lives  aboard  some  war- 
ship afloat;  and  on  shipboard  he  does  certain 
guard  work  and  handles  the  secondary  bat- 
teries. But  he  does  not  have  to  sailorize; 
the  bluejacket  takes  care  of  that  part,  and 
takes  care  of  it  well.  The  notion  that  a 
marine  must  qualify  as  a  sailor  aboard  ship 
has  probably  cost  the  corps  many  a  prospec- 
tive recruit. 

To  call  him  a  seagoing  soldier  is  more  nearly 
correct.  When  it  is  not  an  act  of  war  to  land 
marines  on  foreign  soil,  it  is  good  business  to 


MARINES  HAVE  LANDED 219 

keep  them  where  landings  can  be  quickly  made 
with  them.  So  his  being  kept  aboard  ship,  per- 
haps. Bluejackets  have  taken  part  in  landing- 
parties,  too,  but  it  is  not  to  black  the  bluejack- 
et's eye  to  say  that  it  is  not  his  regular  job. 
The  bluejacket's  work  is  aboard  ship — on  the 
bridge,  in  magazines,  in  turrets,  below  decks. 
Advance  shore  work  is  the  marine's  specialty, 
and  he  goes  to  it  pretty  much  as  a  man  with  a 
dinner-pail  goes  to  work  in  the  subway. 

He  is  the  first  to  land,  the  last  to  leave,  and 
to  name  the  places  where  he  has  seen  service — 
well,  one  of  them  wrote  a  song  once. 

"From  the  hills  of  Montezuma  to  the  shores 
of  Tripoli,"  it  began.  But  he  has  seen  more 
than  Mexico  or  the  Mediterranean  since.  He 
could  now  say: 

"From  the  hills  of  Montezuma  to  the  gates  of  old 

Peking 
He  has  heard  the  shrapnel  bursting,  he  has  heard 

the  Mauser's  ping  ! 
He  has  known  Alaskan  waters  and  the  coral  roads 

of  Guam, 
He  has  bowed  to  templed  idols  and  to  sultans 

made  salaam. 
He  has " 


220         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

But  It's  like  calling  a  roll — Egypt,  Algeria, 
Tripoli,  Abyssinia,  Mexico,  China,  Japan,  Ko- 
rea, Cuba,  Porto  Rico,  Panama,  Nicaragua, 
Haiti,  Santo  Domingo,  Alaska,  the  Philippines, 
Formosa,  Sumatra,  Hawaii,  Samoa,  Guam — 
like  calling  the  roll  of  tropic  countries  and  a 
few  less  warm  to  say  where  he  has  been. 

He  has  been  most  everywhere,  done  most 
everything.  Did  you  ever  see  any  mounted 
marines  ?  There  is  a  guard  of  mounted  ma- 
rines right  now  with  the  legation  in  Peking; 
and  once  a  platoon  of  marines,  on  duty  in 
Africa,  not  being  able  to  get  big  enough  horses, 
rode  camels  through  the  wilds  of  Abyssinia  to 
the  palace  of  old  Menelik. 

In  speaking  here  of  the  marines,  no  man  or 
officer  has  been  named.  That  is  done  of  a 
purpose.  In  talking  of  the  corps,  from  the 
topsiders  down — generals,  colonels,  majors,  cap- 
tains, lieutenants,  and  enlisted  men — one  fact 
stuck  out:  They  all  played  up  the  corps.  All 
individuals — officers  and  men — were  made  sub- 
ordinate to  the  corps.  So  here,  taking  the  tip, 
no  names  are  named.  A  soldier  speaks  of  his 
regiment,  a  bluejacket  of  his  ship.  The  Marine 
Corps  is  made  up  of  companies,  regiments,  bat- 


MARINES  HAVE  LANDED 221 

talions,  divisions;  but  it  is  the  corps  of  which 
the  marine  always  speaks. 

If  you  ask  the  members  of  any  other  outfit 
to  name  the  model  military  unit,  they  may 
name  their  own  branch  of  the  service  first;  but 
if  they  do,  it  is  almost  a  sure  bet  that  they  will 
name  the  United  States  Marine  Corps  next. 
When  they  do  not  name  themselves  first,  they 
name  the  marines  first.  And  this  does  not 
apply  to  outfits  in  this  country  alone. 

By  the  look  of  things  now,  there  probably 
will  be  plenty  of  war  before  we  are  done.  If 
any  young  fellow  is  wishful  to  be  in  the  middle 
of  it,  we  would  say:  Consider  the  marines. 
You  may  not  see  them  mentioned  every  morn- 
ing in  the  press  reports,  but  be  sure  of  this — 
they  are  there  and  on  the  job. 


THE  NAVY  AS  A  CAREER 

A  YOUNG  fellow  reading  all  this  stuff 
about  the  doings  of  our  destroyers 
might  be  inclined  to  look  on  the  navy 
as  pure  adventure,  which  would  not  be  to  get 
it  quite  right.  The  adventure  is  there,  but 
there  is  something  more. 

The  navy  will  take  a  young  man,  feed  and 
clothe  him,  give  him  a  good  all-round  training, 
and  while  he  is  yet  in  middle  age  retire  him 
with  at  least  $60  a  month  for  the  rest  of  his 
life.  No  matter  how  low  his  rating  has  been, 
that  $60  a  month  is  certain  after  his  thirty 
years  of  service;  while,  if  he  has  shown  mod- 
erate intelligence  and  ambition,  he  can  count 
on  close  to  $100  a  month,  and  this  without 
his  having  ever  been  a  commissioned  officer. 
The  years  after  his  retirement  he  may  spend  as 
he  pleases — go  into  business,  get  another  job, 
and  make  another  wage  on  top  of  his  pension. 
He  can  go  to  jail  if  he  prefers:  whatever  he 
does,  always  there  is  that  sheet-anchor  of  a 
pension  to  windward. 

222 


THE  NAVY  AS  A  CAREER       223 

Apart  from  the  fighting  end  of  it,  most  of  us 
possibly  do  not  know  just  what  navy  Hfe  means 
to-day.  We  all  know  that  man-of-war's  men  no 
longer  lie  out  on  rolling  yardarms  to  reef  salt- 
crusted  sails  in  gales  of  wind;  but  in  what  else 
lies  the  difference  ?  Some  of  us,  possibly,  do 
not  know  that. 

The  navy  still  wants  men  with  the  seagoing 
instinct — men  who  can  sailorize,  who  can  hand, 
splice,  and  steer;  but  more  than  ever  the  navy 
is  looking  for  men  who  can  do  other  things. 
The  navy  wants  ship-fitters,  blacksmiths, 
plumbers,  electricians,  wireless  operators,  car- 
penters, boiler-makers,  painters,  printers,  store- 
keepers, bakers,  cooks,  stewards,  drug  clerks; 
even  as  it  wants  gunners,  boatmen,  quarter- 
masters, sailmakers,  firemen,  oilers,  and  it  will 
take  clarinet,  trombone,  and  cornet  players 
and  the  like  for  the  ship's  band. 

If  a  man  has  no  trade  the  navy  will  teach 
him  one.  There  are  navy  schools  for  elec- 
tricians, shipwrights,  ship-fitters,  carpenters, 
painters,  coppersmiths,  ship's  cooks,  bakers, 
stewards,  and  musicians.  There  are  schools 
where  yeomen  (ship's  clerks)  are  taught  all 
about  departmental  papers;  there  is  a  Hospital 


224        THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

Corps  school;  an  aeronautic  school;  a  school 
for  deep-sea  diving.  (There  are  no  schools  for 
blacksmiths  or  boiler-makers;  these  must  have 
mastered  their  trades  before  enlistment.) 

When  a  young  fellow  enlists  he  is  sent  to 
one  of  several  naval  training-stations.  Here 
they  are  quartered  in  barracks — well-aired, 
well-lighted,  well-heated  buildings.  At  one 
place,  where  the  climate  is  mild,  the  boys  sleep 
in  barracks  in  bungalows  with  upper  sides  of 
canvas,  which  are  rolled  down  to  let  in  sun 
and  air  in  fine  weather  and  laced  up  against 
bad  weather. 

At  all  training-stations  there  are  mess-halls, 
reading-rooms,  libraries;  also  gymnasiums,  ath- 
letic fields,  and  ball  parks.  At  all  stations 
there  are  setting-up  drills,  gymnastic,  swim- 
ming and  signal  exercises,  ship  and  boat  train- 
ing. The  men  go  on  hikes,  fight  sham  battles, 
dig  trenches.  Line-officers  give  them  advice 
which  will  be  of  use  to  them  on  shipboard  later; 
service  doctors  and  chaplains  hand  them  hy- 
gienic and  moral  truths  that  will  be  of  use  to 
them  anywhere  at  any  time. 

A  recruit  goes  from  the  training-school  to  a 
cruising  ship,  where  he  may  find  himself — ac- 


THE  NAVY  AS  A  CAREER      225 

cording  to  his  work — doing  watch  duty  four 
hours  on  to  eight  hours  off;  or  working  at  hours 
Hke  a  man  ashore — turning  to  at  eight  or  nine 
o'clock  and  knocking  off  at  four  or  five  or  six 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 

War-ships  formerly  meant  close  living  quar- 
ters; and  ships  formerly  went  off  on  cruises  on 
which  the  men  sometimes  did  not  set  foot  on 
shore  for  six  months  or  a  year,  and  quite  often 
they  had  to  go  for  months  without  taste  of 
fresh  meat  or  vegetables.  Those  days  are 
gone.  Ships  still  make  long  cruises  from  home, 
but  they  do  not  keep  the  sea  as  they  used  to. 
Service  regulations  require  that  men  now  be 
given  a  run  ashore  once  in  three  months;  and 
"beef  boats"  travel  with  all  fleets. 
'  The  everlasting  holystoning  of  wooden  decks 
and  the  dim  lanterns  hung  at  intervals  from 
low-hanging  beams — they  are  gone.  The  only 
dim  lanterns  now  are  the  "battle-lanterns"  in 
use  at  night  war  practice;  and  they  are  swung 
to  steel  bulkheads  by  electric  wires.  Quarter- 
decks, forecastle  heads,  and  bridges  are  still 
planked  on  the  big  ships,  and  such  do  still  have 
to  be  holystoned  on  special  days;  but  the  great 
stretches  between  decks  are  now  laid  in  lino- 


226         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

leum  on  the  hard  steel  Itself;  electric  lights  are 
all  over  the  ship,  and,  as  for  the  low  beams, 
the  new  big  ships  are  so  high-girdered  that 
hammock-hooks  on  the  berth-deck  have  to  be 
made  extra  long  so  the  men  won't  have  to  get 
stepladders  to  turn  in.  A  battleship  nowadays 
is  about  600  feet  long,  100  feet  wide,  has 
seven  or  eight  decks,  with  turrets,  bridges,  mili- 
tary masts,  and  smoke-pipes  topside.  Between 
decks  are  magazines,  storerooms,  engine-rooms, 
boiler-rooms,  dynamo-rooms,  mess-rooms,  ice- 
rooms,  repair-shops,  staterooms,  office-rooms, 
sick-bays,  galleys,  laundries,  pantries — but 
only  ship-constructors  can  tell  you  offhand  how 
many  hundreds  of  compartments  are  below 
decks  of  a  present-day  big  war-ship. 

She  is  a  great  workshop,  an  office-structure, 
a  big  power-plant,  a  floating  hotel — and  a  few 
other  things.  But  above  all  she  is  meant  to 
be  a  home  for  ten  or  twelve  hundred  officers 
and  men, 

A  man  may  not  be  given  duty  on  a  battle- 
ship or  battle  cruiser;  he  may  be  sent  to  a 
scout  cruiser  or  a  beef  boat  or  a  gunboat,  which, 
being  smaller,  will  bounce  and  roll  around  more 
in  heavy  weather  and  not  offer  so  much  room 


THE  NAVY  AS  A  CAREER      227 

to  move  around  in;  but  he  will  get  used  to  the 
bouncing  around,  and  always  he  will  find  some 
variety  and  some  comfort  in  his  daily  life. 

That  item  of  comfort  might  as  well  be 
counted  in  as  important.  It  is  something  to 
know  that,  no  matter  what  else  happens,  there 
are  hot  meals  waiting  a  man  three  times  a  day, 
and  a  dry  change  of  clothing,  and  a  dry  ham- 
mock to  turn  into  nights.  Even  on  deck  duty 
in  bad  weather  a  man  can  get  into  slicker,  rub- 
ber boots,  and  rain-hat,  and  at  the  worst  be 
almost  comfortable. 

Navy  life  is  not  meant  to  be  a  perpetual  en- 
tertainment— not  though  they  do  hold  regular 
smokers  on  the  quarter-decks  of  the  big  ships. 
To  lie  for  months  off  a  tropic  port  waiting  for 
something  to  happen — that  is  not  exhilarating; 
and  coaling  ship,  even  with  the  band  playing — 
that  is  no  joy.  But  the  watching  of  tropic 
ports  passes;  and  the  ship  has  to  steam  many 
a  mile  before  she  must  be  coaled  again.  So, 
taking  it  in  the  long  perspective,  it  is  a  mod- 
erately varied  Hfe,  an  outdoor  life,  and  under 
hygienic  conditions  of  the  best.  Right  now, 
war  with  us,  there  is  going  to  be  some  dan- 
ger; but  we  are  assuming  that  any  man  who 


228         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

thinks  of  joining  the  navy  is  prepared  for  a 
little  danger. 

A  man  may  enlist  in  the  navy  up  to  thirty- 
five  years  of  age,  provided  he  is  at  least  5  feet 
4  inches  tall,  weighs  128  pounds,  has  a  33-inch 
chest,  possesses  normal  vision,  a  moderate 
number  of  sound  teeth,  is  free  from  disease  or 
deformity,  and  is  an  American  citizen.  Some- 
times men  shy  on  some  measurement  are  passed 
if  above  average  otherwise.  A  boy  seventeen 
(the  youngest  enlistment  age)  must  be  5  feet 
2  inches  and  weigh  no  pounds.  When  a  boy 
or  a  man  enlists  he  goes  at  once  on  the  pay- 
roll. With  his  pay  goes  a  clothing  allowance 
sufficient  to  cover  all  service  demands;  with 
his  pay  also  goes  nourishing  and  abundant 
food. 

Enlistments  are  of  four  years  for  men.  A 
boy's  enlistment  runs  to  his  majority.  A  man 
may  work  up  to  be  a  C.  P.  0.  (chief  petty  offi- 
cer) in  his  first  enlistment.  The  navy  is  full  of 
men  who  have  done  that.  During  this  war 
many  a  recruit  should  make  his  C.  P.  O.  quickly, 
for  there  is  nothing  in  the  Regulations  to  pre- 
vent a  recruit  from  making  his  C.  P.  O.  over- 
night.    The  habit  of  most  officers  is  to  rate 


THE  NAVY  AS  A  CAREER       229 

up  good  men  in  their  divisions  as  fast  as  va- 
cancies will  permit. 

A  C.  P.  O.'s  base  pay  may  run  up  to  $1"]  a 
month.  With  re-enlistment  that  base  pay  is 
increased.  A  man  re-enlisting  without  delay 
gets  a  bounty  of  four  months'  pay.  (Figure 
that  extra  re-enlistment  money — four  months' 
pay  every  four  years,  the  same  with  interest  at 
the  navy  savings-account  rate  of  4  per  cent — 
and  see  what  it  amounts  to  after  thirty  years' 
service.)  That  extra  re-enlistment  money  is  not 
figured  into  the  pension  probabilities,  as  stated 
in  the  beginning  of  this  article.  Consider  that 
and  then  consider  how  many  men  have  to  work 
until  they  are  too  old  to  work  any  further  and 
who,  after  all  their  years  of  labor,  go  on  the 
scrap-heap  without  a  dollar  against  the  poverty 
of  their  old  age. 

Besides  the  base  pay  of  a  man's  rating  there 
is  extra  money  for  men  doing  special  work. 
(Neither  has  this  been  reckoned  in  the  pension 
possibilities.)  Certain  gun-pointers,  gun-cap- 
tains, coxswains,  stewards,  and  cooks  get  extra 
money  up  to  $10  a  month.  Men  in  submarines 
get  $\  extra  for  every  day  their  boat  submerges 
up  to  $15  a  month.     Men  acting  as  mail-clerks 


230         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

draw  up  to  $30  a  month  extra;  ship's  tailors  up 
to  $20  a  month  extra.  Men  in  the  Flying  Corps 
get  50  per  cent  more  than  the  base  pay  their 
rating  calls  for.  Every  man  in  the  service 
draws  a  small  extra  sum  for  good  conduct. 

A  chief  petty  officer  is  not  the  highest  rating 
of  the  enlisted  service.  There  is  a  most  effi- 
cient body  of  men  called  warrant-officers,  who 
wear  a  sword,  are  called  "Mr.,"  and  draw  up 
to  $2,400  a  year.  There  are  warrant  boat- 
swains, gunners,  machinists,  carpenters,  phar- 
macists, and  pay-clerks.  But  they  must  re- 
main in  service,  even  as  most  commissioned 
officers,  till  they  are  sixty-four,  before  they 
draw  their  pension  of  three-quarters  pay.  Also, 
like  commissioned  officers,  they  get  no  cloth- 
ing allowance  and  have  to  pay  for  their  food. 

The  matter  of  becoming  a  commissioned  offi- 
cer may  interest  the  recruit.  One  hundred  ap- 
pointments may  be  made  to  Annapolis  every 
year  from  among  the  younger  enlisted  men  of 
the  navy.  Young  fellows  who  wish  to  try  for 
this  are  given  special  opportunities  for  study. 
The  proviso  that  an  applicant  must  be  under 
twenty  years  of  age  and  have  been  at  least  one 
year  in  service  to  make  Annapolis  is  going  to 


THE  NAVY  AS  A  CAREER      231 

bar  the  way  to  some.  For  such  there  is  another 
way — warrant.  A  warrant  boatswain,  gunner, 
or  machinist  of  four  years'  standing  and  still 
under  thirty-five  years  of  age  may  take  an 
examination  for  ensign.  Twelve  warrant-offi- 
cers may  be  made  ensigns  annually.  If  they 
pass,  they  thereafter  go  on  up  exactly  as  any 
Annapolis  graduate.  A  warrant  pay-clerk  may 
go  up  to  be  junior  paymaster,  where  he  will 
rank  with  an  ensign. 

The  foregoing  is  for  the  business  or  ambi- 
tious side.  Somebody  may  ask:  Will  the  young 
fellow  who  looks  on  the  navy  as  a  business 
proposition  make  a  good  fighting  man } 

Well,  in  the  judgment  of  men  who  study  the 
game,  almost  any  young  fellow  you  meet  along 
the  street  has  it  in  him  to  make  a  good  fighting 
man.  The  fighting  habit  is  more  a  habit  of 
mind  than  of  body.  Habituating  the  mind  to 
the  fighting  game  is  what  makes  our  sailors, 
soldiers,  and  marines  do  the  right  thing  almost 
automatically  in  crises;  and  this  almost  auto- 
matically correct  action  makes  for  the  greater 
safety  of  shipmates  or  comrades  in  time  of 
peril. 

In  this  book  only  the  work  of  our  destroyers 


232         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

in  this  war  has  been  spoken  of.  That  is  be- 
cause only  our  destroyers  have  come  in  contact 
with  enemy  ships;  but  all  along  the  line  the  per- 
sonnel is  of  equal  caliber. 

Our  navy  is  crowded  with  men  who  will  face 
any  danger.  Some  years  ago  one  of  our  bat- 
tleships was  on  the  battle-range,  with  bags  of 
powder  stowed  in  her  turrets  to  save  time  in 
loading  and  firing  the  guns.  A  spark  got  to 
the  bags  of  powder.  There  was  an  explosion 
and  a  fire.  Directly  underneath  was  the  hand- 
ling-room. Burning  pieces  of  cloth  fell  from 
the  turret  down  into  the  handling-room.  The 
crew  of  that  handling-room  could  have  jumped 
into  the  passageway,  made  their  way  up  a 
ladder,  and  so  on  to  the  free  and  safe  air  of 
the  open  deck.  What  they  did  was  to  stand 
by  to  stamp  out  what  fire  they  could. 

Leading  from  the  handling-room  were  the 
magazines.  The  doors  of  the  magazines  were 
open.  Men  jumped  into  the  magazines  and 
buttoned  the  keys  of  the  bulkhead  doors  so 
that  there  would  be  no  crevice  for  sparks.  In 
doing  that  they  locked  themselves  in;  and  once 
in  they  had  to  stay  in.  Above  them,  they 
knew,  was  a  turret  full  of  men  and  officers  dead 


THE  NAVY  AS  A  CAREER      233 

and  dying;  they  knew  that  fire  was  raging 
around  them,  too,  and  that  the  next  thing 
would  be  for  the  people  outside  to  flood  the 
magazines.  The  magazines  were  flooded;  when 
things  were  under  control  and  the  doors  opened, 
the  water  in  the  magazines  was  up  to  the  men's 
necks. 

While  that  was  going  on  below  decks,  in  the 
turret  were  other  men  and  officers,  including 
the  chaplain,  not  knowing  what  was  going  on 
below,  and  expecting  every  moment  to  be 
blown  up  into  the  sky;  but  there  they  were, 
easing  the  last  moments  of  the  men  who  were 
not  already  dead.  Thirty  all  told  were  killed 
in  the  turret.  All  concerned  behaved  well,  but 
no  better  than  they  were  expected  to  behave. 

A  few  years  ago  there  was  a  destroyer  off" 
Hatteras.  It  was  before  daybreak  of  a  win- 
ter's morning  in  heavy  weather.  A  boiler  ex- 
plosion blew  out  her  side  from  well  below  the 
water-line  clear  up  through  to  her  main  deck. 
Men  were  killed  by  the  explosion;  others  were 
badly  scalded.  A  steam  burn  is  an  agonizing 
thing,  yet  some  of  these  scalded  men  went  back 
into  that  hell  of  a  boiler-room  and  hauled  out 
shipmates   who,    to   their   notion,   were    more 


234         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

badly  burned  than  themselves.  One  such  res- 
cuer died  of  his  burns.  The  hole  in  the  deck 
and  top  side  of  that  destroyer  was  twelve  feet 
across,  yet  her  commander  and  crew  got  her  to 
Norfolk  under  her  own  steam.  Commander 
and  crew  behaved  well,  but  no  better  than  they 
were  expected  to  behave. 

There  is  a  chief  boatswain  in  the  navy  who 
had  the  duty  of  taking  a  ship's  steamer  with  a 
crew  to  look  after  the  ship's  target  at  .battle 
practice.  A  target  is  a  frame  of  canvas  set  up 
on  a  raft  of  logs.  The  duty  of  the  steamer  was 
to  stand  off  to  one  side  and  make  a  record  of 
the  hits. 

This  boatswain  likes  to  joke,  to  try  out  new 
men.  On  the  run  from  the  ship  he  called  the 
roll  and  said:  "Now,  boys,  in  this  work  one  of 
you  will  have  to  stay  on  the  raft  to  count  the 
hits.  Of  course  it  is  dangerous  work.  I  won't 
say  that  it  isn't.  The  man  going  may  not  come 
back.  The  chances  are" — he  eyed  them  one 
after  another — "that  whoever  goes  will  never 
come  off  the  raft  alive.  Now,  I  can  name  the 
one  who  will  have  to  do  that  work.  But  I 
don't  want  to  have  to  name  him.  I'll  let  you 
draw  lots." 


THE  NAVY  AS  A  CAREER      235 

He  took  a  sheet  of  paper  and  cut  it  into 
strips.  His  crew — all  apprentice  boys,  all  fresh 
from  the  training-school — drew  the  slips.  The 
lad  who  drew  the  short  slip  was  no  better  or 
braver  to  look  at  than  most  of  the  others.  He 
looked  at  his  sHp  of  paper  and  then  in  a  sort 
of  wonder  at  the  sea  and  sky. 

He  came  back  to  his  short  slip.  His  lips 
trembled.  He  prayed  to  himself.  Then  he 
went  down  into  his  blouse  pocket  and  fished 
out  a  stub  of  a  pencil.  He  was  whiter  than 
ever,  and  shaking.  **Can  I  have  a  sheet  of 
paper,  sir?'* 

"What  do  you  want  a  sheet  of  paper  for?" 

"I'd  like,  sir,  to  write  a  note  to  my  mother 
before  I  go." 

To  pick  out  a  few  isolated  instances  from 
service  records  and  shout:  "There  is  the  proof 
of  general  efficiency,  of  courage,  of — "  what- 
not— that  would  be  idle.  These  were  not  taken 
from  the  service  records.  Officers  and  men  in 
the  turret  explosion,  in  the  destroyer  accident,  in 
the  raft  incident,  are  mentioned  here  because  the 
writer,  at  different  times,  has  cruised  with  them. 

They  all  behaved  well;  but  no  better  than 
they  were  expected  to. 


236         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

When  I  asked  the  boatswain  in  the  raft  case 
if  he  expected  the  boy  to  quit,  he  said:  **Quit ! 
They  never  quit." 

This  talk  of  heroism  and  pensions  in  the 
same  breath  may  not  seem  to  jibe;  somebody  is 
going  to  wonder  if  the  man  who  thinks  of  the 
money  side  of  the  navy  in  the  beginning  isn't 
going  to  think  too  much  of  it  in  the  end.  But 
there  is  a  point  of  view  which  should  be  reck- 
oned with,  and  a  type  of  man,  of  a  good  fight- 
ing man,  who  should  be  listened  to  in  this 
matter.  Why  should  not  a  man  who  risks 
his  life  in  his  daily  calling  have  the  normal 
comforts  and  his  family  the  ordinary  necessities 
of  life .? 

I  know  a  fireman,  an  efficient,  brave  man — a 
man  with  a  record.  One  night — ^we  were  in  a 
drug  store  in  a  crowded  city — he  was  answering 
the  argument  of  a  man  working  in  a  big  factory. 

Said  the  fireman:  "You're  making  your  five 
or  six — yes,  and  eight — dollars  a  day,  in  lively 
times  like  now.  All  right.  But  the  lively  times 
will  pass,  and  there'll  come  weeks  when  you 
won't  make  any  four  or  five  or  six  dollars  a  day, 
and  there'll  come  weeks  when  you'll  be  on  half- 
time.     Average  it  up  and  you  won't  get  any 


THE  NAVY  AS  A  CAREER       237 

more  than  I  will  in  the  long  run.  And  when 
I'm  through,  when  I'm  fifty-five,  I  get  a  pen- 
sion, and  with  a  few  good  years  left  to  me. 
And  where  are  you  then  ?  Out  on  the  street 
or  some  home  for  the  aged — if  they  will  take 
you. 

"Save  money  as  I  go  along?  I  don't  figure 
on  it — not  with  a  family  and  trying  to  give 
them  the  kind  of  food  they  need  and  the  little 
things  that  live  boys  and  girls — especially  girls 
— care  as  much  for  as  the  grub  they  eat  and 
the  clothes  they  wear.  But  if  I  do  spend  all 
my  pay,  my  family  are  getting  the  good  of  it, 
I  don't  go  into  the  discard  at  the  end.  And 
when  I'm  up  on  a  shaky  roof  in  a  bad  fire, 
maybe  I'll  be  more  ready  to  take  a  chance, 
knowing  that  if  I  go  through  and  cripple  my- 
self, there's  something  coming  to  the  wife  and 
family  after  it." 

The  fireman's  argument  holds  for  the  navy, 
except  that  in  the  navy  they  get  through 
younger  and  with  a  bigger  pension. 

Is  there  any  romance  in  the  navy  nowadays  ? 
Who  can  answer  for  all  ?  Probably  as  much 
now  as  ever  there  was.  Why  should  substitut- 
ing smoke-pipes  for  spars,  and  propellers  for 


238         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

sails,  kill  the  thing  that  thrills  us  ?  I've  seen 
men  washing  down  decks  of  a  tropic  morning, 
and,  ninety  miles  inland,  old  Orizaba  showing 
his  white  head  above  the  clouds;  and  some  of 
those  men  thought  it  was  slow  work  and  others 
thought  it  was  great. 

On  a  scout  cruiser  to  African  ports,  or  a 
thousand  miles  up  a  Chinese  river  on  a  gun- 
boat, among  the  South  Sea  Islands  on  a  light 
cruiser,  some  men  return  with  dumb  lips  and 
others  can  keep  you  awake  till  morning  with 
the  tales  of  what  they've  seen. 

A  nineteen-year-old  big-gun  pointer  sits  atop 
of  his  bicycle  saddle,  and  the  enemy  fleet  is 
swinging  into  range.  Will  it  be  like  shooting 
clay  pipes  in  a  gallery  or  will  a  warmer  wave 
go  rolling  through  his  veins  as  he  presses  the 
button } 

Romance !  Is  it  something  always  dead  and 
gone,  or  something  a  man  carries  around  with 
him .? 

Whatever  it  is,  the  navy  is  there  to  try  it 
out,  and  no  danger  of  starving  while  we  try  it. 


THE    SEA  BABIES 

SUBMARINES  have  been  cutting  a  large 
figure  in  this  war.  There  is  probably  a 
general  curiosity  to  know  how  they  are 
operated.  I  know  I  was  curious  to  know,  and, 
Collier*s  having  secured  me  permission  from  the 
Electric  Boat  Company,  I  went  over  to  Cape 
Cod  to  take  in  a  trial  trip  or  two  of  some 
boats  they  were  building  for  the  British  Gov- 
ernment. 

There  was  one  all  ready  for  sea. 

Long  and  narrow,  and  modelled  like  a 
stretched-out  egg  she  was,  with  one  end  of  the 
egg  running  to  a  point  by  way  of  a  stern,  and 
the  other  flattened  to  an  up-and-down  wedge- 
like bow.     A  heavy  black  line  marked  her  run. 

Below  her  run  she  was  tinted  to  the  pale 
green  of  inshore  waters,  and  to  a  grayish  blue 
above.  Everything  above  her  deck,  which  was 
only  a  raised  fore-and-aft  platform  for  the  crew 
to  walk  on,  with  countless  little  round  scupper- 
holes  in  its  sides — above  the  deck  her  conning- 
239 


240         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

tower,  and  above  that  again  her  periscope  cas- 
ing— all  were  blue-gray. 

The  feeling  of  the  morning  was  of  heavy- 
wind  and  rain  or  snow  to  come;  and  a  hard, 
cold  breath  of  the  sea  and  a  taste  of  the  rain 
were  already  on  us  as  we  crossed  the  plank 
from  the  mother  ship  to  the  deck  of  the  "sub" 
and,  one  after  the  other,  fitted  ourselves  into 
the  main  hatchway  and  wiggled  down  into  her. 

Our  submarine,  from  the  inside,  was  an 
amazing  collection  of  engines,  tanks,  gauges, 
tubes,  pipes,  valves,  wheels,  torpedoes,  tube 
heads,  electric  registers,  electric  lights,  and 
what-not.  A  flat  steel  floor  ran  from  the  for- 
ward end  to  the  engine-room  aft.  Between  the 
floor  and  the  arched  deck  overhead  were  three 
heavy  steel  bulkheads  with  heavy  steel  doors. 
A  narrow  iron  skeleton  ladder  led  up  to  her 
conning-tower;  small  steel  rungs  bolted  to  the 
casing  showed  the  way  to  a  square  after-deck 
hatch. 

When  all  the  others  of  us  were  below,  the 
captain  came  squeezing  down  from  the  conning- 
tower  hatch  and  took  his  position  at  the  peri- 
scope. 

To  the  captain^s  left  stood  a  man  whose  job 


THE  SEA  BABIES  241 

it  was  to  hold  the  sub  to  the  depth  of  water  de- 
sired. This  was  the  diving-rudder  man,  a  most 
expert  one,  we  were  told,  who  had  been  known 
to  hold  a  submerged  sub  at  full  speed  to  within 
six  inches  of  one  depth  for  two  miles  at  a 
stretch.  A  thin  brass  scale  and  a  curved  tube 
of  colored  water  with  an  air  bubble  in  it  helped 
out  the  diving-rudder  man's  calculations.  The 
least  deviation  of  the  sub's  course  from  the 
horizontal  and  these  two  instruments,  lit  up 
by  electric  lamps,  showed  it  at  once.  There 
was  a  big  dial,  with  a  long  green  hand,  which 
also  marked  the  depth  of  the  sub;  but  that  was 
an  insensitive  and  rather  slow-acting  gauge — 
all  right  for  the  crew  to  look  at  from  half  the 
length  of  the  sub,  but  not  fine  or  quick  enough 
for  the  diving-rudder  man. 

He  was  the  busy  man  while  we  were  under 
water.  The  others  could  now  and  again  grab 
a  moment  of  relaxation  from  their  tenseness, 
but  while  the  sub  was  moving  the  diving-rud- 
der man  never  took  his  eyes  off  the  little  brass 
scale  with  the  electric  light  playing  on  it.  Stop 
and  consider  that  our  sub  had  only  to  get  a 
downward  inclination  of  ever  so  little  while 
running   hooked-up    under  water,   and   in  no 


242         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

time  she  would  be  below  her  lowest  safety- 
depth  of  200  feet,  where  the  pressure  is  7  tons 
to  every  square  foot  of  her  hull.  And  should 
she  collapse  there  would  be  no  preliminary 
small  leak  by  way  of  warning.  She  would  go 
as  an  egg-shell  goes  when  you  crush  it  in  your 
palm.  Plack  ! — like  that — and  it  would  be  all 
over.  Above  this  same  middle  compartment, 
the  smallest  and  most  crowded  of  all,  up  through 
the  grilled  spaces  of  a  steel  grating,  we  could 
see  the  wide  feet  and  boot-legs  of  the  man  who 
held  the  ship  to  her  compass  course;  and  for  a 
wheel,  we  knew,  he  was  holding  a  little  metal 
lever  about  as  long  and  thick  as  his  middle 
finger,  with  a  little  black  ball  about  as  big  as 
the  ball  of  his  thumb  on  the  end  of  it. 

To  the  right  of  the  foot  of  the  conning- 
tower  ladder  stood  the  ballast-tank  man;  and 
when  the  captain  from  the  foot  of  his  periscope 
gave  the  word — after  first  looking  forward,  aft, 
and  to  each  side  of  him  to  see  that  all  hands 
were  at  their  proper  stations — it  was  the  bal- 
last-tank man  who  went  violently  at  once  into 
action.  He  grabbed  a  big  valve  and  gave  it  a 
twist;  grabbed  another  and  gave  it  a  twist;  and 
another,  and  one  more;  and,  standing  near  by, 


O    D.5 
o    o  2 

(Li      O    > 


THE  SEA  BABIES  243 

we  could  hear — or  thought  we  could — the  in- 
rush of  great  waters. 

A  man  got  to  wondering  then  what  would 
happen  if  this  chap  got  his  valves  mixed.  But 
a  look  around  showed  every  lever  and  every 
valve,  everything  marked  with  its  own  name 
and  number.  Nothing  was  left  unmarked — in 
deep-cut  black  lettering  on  brass  plates  gener- 
ally, but  here  and  there  colored-light  signs, 
too.  After  another  look  at  the  multiplicity  of 
them,  almost  any  man  would  agree  that  it  is  a 
good  scheme. ' 

But  to  get  back:  the  tank  man  has  done  his 
part  and  our  sub  is  sinking.  There  is  no  un- 
usual feeling  to  inform  a  man  she  is  sinking. 
Only  for  the  starting  of  the  engines,  the  diving- 
rudder  man  getting  busy,  and  the  wide-faced 
gauge's  long  green  finger  beginning  to  walk 
around,  a  man  who  didn't  know  could  easily 
believe  that  the  sub  was  still  tied  up  alongside 
her  supply-ship.  But  the  long  green  finger  is 
walking,  and  marking  5  feet,  10  feet,  11,  12,  as 
it  walks.  At  16  feet  the  finger  oscillates  and 
stops,  and  to  that  depth  our  diving-rudder  man 
holds  her  while  she  speeds  on  for  a  mile  or  so. 

That  first  little  dash  is  by  way  of  warming 


244         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

her  up.  The  officer  for  whose  government  this 
submarine  was  built  is  aboard.  He  now  asks 
for  a  torpedo  demonstration.  So  two  1,500- 
pound  dummy  torpedoes  are  got  ready,  the 
breeches  to  two  of  the  four  forward  tubes 
opened,  the  torpedoes  slipped  in,  the  breeches 
closed.     The  bow  caps  are  then  opened. 

The  captain,  during  all  this  time,  has  never 
left  the  periscope,  which — to  have  it  explained 
and  over  with — is  no  more  than  a  long  telescope 
set  on  end,  with  a  reflecting  mirror  top  and 
bottom.  From  the  lower  end  of  the  periscope 
project  two  brass  arms,  by  means  of  which  the 
skipper  now  swings  the  periscope  all  the  way 
around.  In  this  way  he  is  able  to  look  at  any 
quarter  of  the  sea  he  pleases. 

Running  at  the  depth  we  were  then,  the  peri- 
scope showing  about  six  feet  out  of  water,  the 
captain  at  the  periscope  was,  of  course,  the 
only  man  who  could  see  anything  outside  of 
her. 

The  captain  gave  the  needful  preliminary 
orders;  and  at  the  proper  time,  sighting  through 
the  periscope  as  he  did  so,  he  pressed  the  but- 
ton of  a  little  arrangement  which  he  held,  half 
concealed,  in  the  palm  of  his  hand.     There  was 


THE  SEA  BABIES  245 

a  soft  explosion,  a  sort  of  woof ! — and  a  torpedo 
was  on  the  way  to  a  hypothetical  enemy,  with 
only  the  captain  able  to  see  that  it  reached  its 
mark. 

As  the  torpedo  left  the  sub  the  rudder  man 
gave  her  a  "down"  rudder,  which  was  to  offset 
the  tendency  of  the  sub  to  shoot  her  nose  to 
the  surface;  when  the  torpedo  had  gone  the 
tank  man  turned  on  the  air-pressure,  which 
blew  out  what  water  had  entered  the  torpedo 
chamber.  By  and  by  the  other  torpedo  was 
fired. 

One  reason  for  this  trial  run  was  to  prove 
that  she  could  run  so  many  miles  an  hour 
under  water  by  the  power  of  her  storage- 
batteries  alone.  And  soon  she  went  at  that. 
And  no  mild  racket  inside  her  then;  for  a  sub's 
engine  power  and  space  are  out  of  all  propor- 
tion to  her  tonnage.  Not  to  decrease  the  noise, 
the  man  to  whom  the  trial  meant  most  was 
standing  by  with  a  stop-watch,  and  every  half- 
minute  or  so  he  would  yell  at  the  top  of  his 
lungs,  "Go  !"  or  "Hold  !"  to  the  engineer,  who 
was  imprisoned  in  a  narrow  alleyway  with  en- 
gines to  right  and  to  left  and  below  him.  The 
engineer  would  look  at  a  register  and  yell  back 


246         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

at  the  manager,  who  would  then  set  some  figures 
in  a  book  and  rush  over  to  the  man  who  was 
reckoning  up  the  decreasing  or  increasing  am- 
peres or  kilowatts  or  whatever  they  were  of  her 
storage-batteries,  and  set  down  more  figures; 
and  if  the  boss  had  to  yell  his  head  off  to  make 
himself  heard,  be  sure  that  the  others  had  to 
yell  even  louder.  Only  on  trial  trips,  probably, 
where  tests  have  to  be  proved,  does  all  this 
yelling  happen;  but  the  total  effect  was  to  make 
a  shore-goer  feel,  not  as  if  he  were  in  a  ship 
under  water,  but  rather  in  a  subway  section 
under  construction,  or  some  overdriven  corner 
of  some  sort  of  night-working  machine-shop,  or 
some  other  homelike  place  ashore.  The  bright 
electric  Hghts  helped  out  the  machine-shop  illu- 
sion. 

For  a  time  during  the  run  the  diving-rudder 
man  had  his  troubles  keeping  her  on  a  level, 
whereupon  the  skipper — an  easy-going  man 
ordinarily — ^jerked  his  head  away  from  his 
periscope  and  had  a  peek  for  the  reason. 
Through  the  forward  bulkhead  door  he  spied 
the  torpedo  man,  who,  feeling  pleased,  perhaps, 
at  the  successful  execution  of  his  part  of  the 
programme,  was  fox-trotting  fore  and  aft  for 


THE  SEA  BABIES  247 

himself  in  his  section  of  the  ship.  "Would  you 
mind  picking  out  one  spot  and  staying  on  it  ?" 
asked  the  skipper,  at  which  the  torpedo  man 
took  his  camp-stool,  picked  out  his  one  spot, 
and  planted  himself  on  it,  and  piously  read  the 
stock-market  quotations  of  a  week-old  news- 
paper for  the  rest  of  the  run. 

While  this  hour  run — full  speed,  submerged 
— ^was  in  progress,  a  tickling  in  our  throats  set 
most  of  us  to  coughing.  A  naval  constructor 
of  note,  who  was  also  a  shark  on  chemistry, 
explained  how  this  coughing  was  not  caused  by 
the  chill  in  the  air,  but  by  the  particles  of 
sulphuric  acid  thrown  ofF  by  the  action  of 
the  storage-batteries.  These  little  particles,  it 
seems,  went  travelling  about  in  the  air  seeking 
a  home — some  place,  any  place  where  they 
could  tuck  in  out  of  the  way;  but  all  the  air 
homes  being  already  occupied  by  other  tenants 
— the  usual  ingredients  or  components  of  the 
air — they  could  find  no  place  to  butt  in;  and 
so  they  went  around  and  about  till  innocent 
people  like  ourselves  made  a  home  for  them 
by  breathing  them  in  out  of  the  way.  After 
which  explanation — ^yelled  above  all  the  other 
noises — these  sulphuric  hoboes  caused  less  sus- 


248         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

picion  and  discomfort.  It  was  good  to  hear 
that  what  we  were  swallowing  was  not  the 
chlorine  of  a  hundred  stories  of  fiction. 

The  sub  had  now  to  prove  her  diving  quali- 
ties. So  tanks  were  blown  out  and  up  she 
went  to  the  surface  again;  and  there,  while  she 
was  resting  like  a  bird  on  the  water,  ballast- 
tanks  were  suddenly  filled  and  down  she  went. 
Down,  down,  down  she  went — the  long  green 
finger  on  the  broad-faced  gauge  walking  around 
at  a  fine  clip.  Dropping  so — on  an  even  keel, 
by  the  way — she  gave  out  no  sense  of  action 
such  as  a  man  gets  on  an  aeroplane.  Flying 
around  in  the  air,  you  see  what's  doing  every 
second.  If  anything  happens,  you  know  you 
will  see  it  coming,  and — perhaps — going:  your 
eyes,  ears,  brains,  and  nerves  prove  things  to 
you. 

But  action  in  a  submarine  lies  largely  in  a 
man's  imagination,  unless  he  be  the  periscope 
man;  and  even  there,  when  she  is  completely 
submerged,  he  sees  no  more  than  the  others. 
However,  a  man  did  not  need  to  have  too  much 
imagination  to  think  of  a  few  things  as  he 
looked  at  the  long  green  finger  walking  around: 
30  feet,  40  feet,  50  feet —    This  particular  ob- 


THE  SEA  BABIES  249 

server  had  no  idea  she  could  drop  so  fast;  and 
as  she  dropped,  he  could  not  help  wondering 
how  deep  the  ocean  was  around  there — this  in 
case  anything  happened.  Sixty  feet,  70  feet — 
she  was  gathering  great  speed  by  then,  but  at 
82  feet  she  stopped — a  pleasant  thing  to  see. 
And  then,  maybe  to  show  it  was  no  accident, 
she  did  it  all  over  again.  Did  we  feel  any 
difficulty  in  breathing  during  all  this  .?  We  did 
not,  nor  during  the  three  to  four  hours  we  were 
under  that  morning.  And  let  a  man  listen  to 
these  submarine  enthusiasts  telling  how  they 
can  live  three  or  four  weeks  on  their  compressed 
air,  if  they  have  to,  without  coming  to  the  sur- 
face !  Only  give  them  food  enough,  of  course. 
And  coffee — they  have  an  electric  range  to 
make  the  coffee.  As  it  happened,  they  made 
coffee  for  us — not  that  day,  but  next  morning 
going  home.  It  was  good  coffee.  The  82-foot- 
drop  stunts  were  done  with  each  of  the  crew  at 
his  station,  ready  at  any  instant  to  check  her. 
To  meet  the  further  requirements  our  sub 
had  to  rise  to  the  top,  fill  her  tanks,  let  herself 
go,  and  then,  by  an  automatic  safety  device, 
fetch  up  all  by  herself.  So  the  tank  man  ap- 
plied the  air-pressure,  blew  his  tanks  free  of  all 


250 


THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 


water,  closed  his  outer  valves  and  brought  her 
up.  She  was  now  stretched  out  on  the  surface 
— not  quite  motionless,  for  the  first  of  the 
breeze  predicted  the  night  before  was  on  and 
we  could  feel  that  she  was  rolling  a  little.  A 
peek  through  the  periscope  while  she  was  up 
disclosed  further  evidence  of  the  breeze — toss- 
ing white  crests,  two  coasters  hustling  for  har- 
bor under  short  sail,  an  inbound  fisherman  with 
reefed  mainsail  making  great  leaps  for  home. 
Looking  through  the  periscope  so,  it  was  easy 
enough  to  understand  the  feeling  of  power 
which  might  well  come  to  the  master  of  a  sub- 
marine in  war  time.  The  sub  can  be  lying 
there — in  dark  or  bright  water  will  make  no 
difference;  on  such  a  day  no  eye  is  going  to 
discern  the  white  bone  of  the  moving  periscope; 
and  he  can  be  standing  there,  with  a  quick  peek 
now  and  then  to  see  what  is  going  on  above 
him;  and  by  and  by  she  can  come  swinging 
along  majestically  in  her  arrogance  and  power 
— the  greatest  battleship  afloat,  with  guns  to 
level  a  great  city,  or  the  biggest  and  speediest 
ship  ever  built — and  he  can  be  there  and  when 
he  gets  good  and  ready —  Woof!  she's  gone. 
War-ship  or  liner,  she's  gone  and  all  aboard 


THE  SEA  BABIES  251 

gone  with  her;  and  the  submarine  skipper  can 
go  along  about  his  business  of  getting  the  next 
one. 

However,  the  automatic  device  was  set  for 
action  at  the  required  depth  and  the  word 
given. 

In  this  same  middle  compartment — the  op- 
erating compartment  of  the  ship — ^was  a  man 
with  the  spiritual  face  of  one  who  keeps  lonely, 
intense  vigils.  He  sat  on  a  camp-stool,  and  his 
business  seemed  to  be  not  ever  to  let  his  rapt 
gaze  wander  from  several  rows  of  gauges  which 
were  screwed  to  the  bulkhead  before  him. 
Since  I  first  stepped  down  into  the  sub  I  had 
spotted  him,  and  had  been  wondering  if  his 
ascetic  look  was  born  with  him  or  was  a  de- 
velopment of  his  job — ^whatever  his  job  might 
be.  Now  I  learned  what  his  job  was.  He  was 
the  man  who  stood  by  the  automatic  safety 
devices.  If  anything  happened  to  the  regular 
gadgets  and  it  was  life  or  death  to  get  her  at 
once  to  the  surface,  he  was  the  man  who 
pressed  a  button,  or  moved  a  switch,  or  in 
some  highly  mechanical  way  applied  the  mys- 
terious power  which  would  get  her  safe  to  the 
surface. 


252         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

The  skipper  gave  the  word,  the  main  ballast 
lad  opened  his  outer  valves,  and  down  she 
started.  We  knew  this,  as  always,  by  the 
moving  green  finger  on  the  wide-faced  gauge. 
Downward  she  kept  on  going,  and  to  a  man 
not  too  long  shipmates  with  the  creature  she 
certainly  did  seem  to  be  going  down  in  a  hurry. 
She  was  nearing  the  appointed  depth;  she  made 
the  appointed  depth,  and — went  on  by. 
"What's  this!"  said  one  observer  to  himself, 
and  directed  an  interested  eye  toward  the 
saint-like  lad  on  the  camp-stool. 

But  it  was  only  for  a  few  feet.  The  indicator 
slacked  up,  fluttered,  stopped  dead.  And  then 
• — without  the  husky  tank  boy  to  lift  a  finger — 
we  heard  the  rumph-h  and  rumbling  of  the 
valve-seats  as  the  sea-water  was  driven  out  of 
her  ballast-tanks;  and  then  up  she  started. 
Soon  there  she  was — did  it  all  by  herself — atop 
of  the  water.  And  the  face  of  the  young  fel- 
low of  the  automatic  devices  was  like  the  face 
of  the  devout  missionary  who  has  just  put 
something  over  on  the  heathen. 

Later,  when  you  express  the  feeling  of  almost 
holy  comfort  which  these  little  automatic 
safety    devices    give    you,    the    manager — the 


THE  SEA  BABIES  253 

same  with  the  stop-watch  and  the  note-book — 
says,  **Puh!  Look  here,"  and  sits  down  and 
details — drawing  good  working  plans  of  them 
on  a  pad  while  he  talks — three  different  ways 
by  which  a  submarine  crew  can  beat  the  game 
should  any  evil  happen  the  ordinary  and  regu- 
lar means  of  getting  to  the  surface. 

She  has  a  turn  at  porpoising  then;  that  is 
from  a  moderate  depth  the  diving-rudder  man 
shoots  her  near  enough  to  the  surface  for  the 
captain  to  have  a  look  through  the  periscope — 
a  long-enough  look  to  plot  the  enemy  on  a 
chart,  but  not  long  enough  to  give  that  enemy 
much  of  a  chance  to  pick  him  up;  and  then 
under  again.  And  then  up  for  another  peek; 
and  quickly  under  again,  the  captain  at  the 
periscope  taking  each  time  a  fresh  bearing  of 
the  enemy,  who  is  supposed  to  be  at  some  dis- 
tance and  steaming  at  good  speed.  After  two 
or  three  such  quick  sights,  changing  course 
after  each  sight,  it  will  be  time  to  discharge  a 
torpedo  or  two  at  her.  And — the  layman  may 
note  it — ^with  expert  men  at  the  periscope  and 
diving-rudder,  a  porpoising  sub  can  sight,  dis- 
charge her  torpedo,  and  dive — all  within  five 
seconds. 


254        THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

Steaming  back  to  harbor  after  our  trial  run 
that  day,  we  caught  the  first  rip  of  the  gale 
which  the  gummed-over  moon  and  the  low 
barometer  had  forecast  the  night  before.  It 
was  too  rough  to  tie  her  up  to  the  supply-ship, 
so  the  sub  was  anchored — they  .carry  anchors 
too — a  short  distance  away,  with  three  men 
left  on  her  for  an  anchor  watch,  the  idea  being 
to  take  them  off  later  for  a  hot  meal.  But 
after  the  rest  of  us  were  safe  and  warm  and 
well  fed  aboard  the  mother  ship,  the  increasing 
winds  came  bowling  over  the  increasing  seas, 
and  the  crew  of  the  sub  had  to  wait. 

At  intervals  we  could  hear  them  emitting  be- 
seeching, doleful,  disgusted  moans  and  shrieks 
and  howls  from  her  air-whistle.  But  it  was 
too  rough  for  any  Httle  choo-choo  boat  to  be 
batthng  around.  It  was  9.30  that  night  before 
they  could  safely  be  taken  ofF.  They  were  a 
moderately  good-natured  lot;  but  that  was  the 
blear-eyed  trouble  with  making  sub  trial  trips 
with  bad  weather  coming  on — a  man  never 
knew  about  his  regular  meals. 

The  supply-ship  was  quite  a  little  institution 
herself.  Approaching  her  from  shore  the  night 
before,  her  lights  beneath  the  dull  moon  and 


THE  SEA  BABIES  255 

thin,  drifting  clouds  had  loomed  up  Hke  a  danc- 
ing-hall across  the  lonesome  harbor  waters. 
When  we  got  aboard,  we  found  her  the  relic  of 
what  had  once  been  a  fine  block  of  a  three- 
masted  coaster;  but  moored  forward  and  aft 
she  was  now,  as  if  for  all  time,  and  no  longer 
showing  stout  spars  and  weather-beaten  canvas 
— nothing  but  two  floors  of  white-painted 
boarding  above  her  old  bulwarks. 

She  was  a  boarding-place,  a  sort  of  club,  for 
the  crew  and  attendants,  as  well  as  a  supply 
station  for  the  submarines  which  in  these  New 
England  waters  were  being  tried  out  for  one  of 
the  warring  Powers.  Voices  and  cigar-smoke 
as  we  stepped  aboard,  and  more  or  less  quiet 
breathing,  with  partly  closed  and  open  living 
and  sleeping  rooms,  denoted  that  men  were 
discussing,  arguing,  sleeping,  and  otherwise 
passing  a  normal  evening.  Looking  farther, 
we  saw  that  down  in  the  insides  of  her — where 
formerly  she  stowed  noble  freights  of  coal  or 
lumber  or,  sometimes,  hay  and  ice — were  now 
a  boiler  and  engine  room,  and  a  good,  big  repair- 
shop. 

This  night,  while  the  gale  came  howling  and 
the  sea   rolHng   and   the   solid   rain   sweeping 


2S6         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

against  the  sober  old  sides  of  our  supply-ship — 
on  this  night,  the  finest  kind  to  be  sitting  in  a 
warm  cabin,  we  sat  and,  while  the  smoke  rolled 
high,  aired  our  views  of  the  real  things  in  the 
world;  and  the  most  real  thing  in  the  world 
just  then  being  a  submarine,  we  got  this: 

"Danger?  Of  course,  there's  some  danger. 
So  is  there  danger  in  bank-fishing,  in  log-jam- 
ming down  in  Maine,  in  mining  deep  down, 
and  in  aeroplaning. 

"You  want  to  get  a  sub  right.  A  sub  is  a 
ship  modelled  different  from  most  ships,  of 
course,  and  built  stronger  to  stand  pressure, 
but  only  a  ship,  after  all,  with  special  tanks  in 
her.  She's  on  top  of  the  water  and  wants  to 
go  down.  Good.  She  fills  her  tanks  and  down 
she  goes.  She's  down  and  wants  to  come  up. 
All  right.  She  empties  her  tanks  and  up  she 
comes.  She's  got  to.  She  couldn't  stay  down 
with  her  tanks  empty  if  she  wanted  to — not 
unless  she  blew  a  hole  in  her  side,  or  left  her 
hatches  open. 

"Of  course  if  her  tanks  don't  work  right! 
But  we  showed  you  three  different  ways  to-day 
how  she  can  beat  that  game.  And  anyway, 
no  matter  what  happens,  unless  you're  cruising 


THE  SEA  BABIES  257 

deep,  it's  only  a  few  feet  to  the  top.  Not  like 
a  crazy  aeroplane  a  thousand  feet  up  in  the  air ! 
Something  happens  in  an  aeroplane,  and  where 
are  you  ?  With  a  busted  stay  or  bamboo  strut 
and  you  a  mile  in  the  air,  where  are  you  ?  Vol- 
plane ?  Maybe.  But  if  you  didn't — down 
you'd  come  atumbhng  Hke  a  hoop  out  of  the 
clouds.  That's  90  per  cent — yes,  maybe  99 
per  cent — of  the  submarine  game:  See  that 
everything  is  right  mechanically  with  your 
sub,  then  get  a  competent  crew  and — well, 
you're  ready." 

That  is  for  the  submariner's  point  of  view. 
As  for  the  danger  from  a  shore-goer's  point  of 
view:  Ashore  we  make  the  mistake,  perhaps, 
of  thinking  of  a  submarine  as  a  heavy,  logy  body 
fighting  always  for  her  life  beneath  an  un- 
friendly ocean;  whereas  she  is  a  light-moving 
easily  controlled  creature  cruising  in  a  rather 
friendly  element. 

The  ocean  is  always  trying  to  lift  her  atop 
and  not  hold  her  under  water.  A  submarine 
could  be  sent  under  with  a  positive  buoyancy 
so  small — that  is,  with  so  little  more  than  enough 
in  her  tanks  to  sink  her — that  an  ordinary  man 
standing  on  the  sea  bottom  could  catch  her  as 


258         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

she  came  floating  down  and  bounce  her  up  and 
off  merely  by  the  strength  of  his  arms.  Con- 
sider a  submarine  under  water  as  we  would  a 
toy  balloon  in  the  air,  say.  Weight  that  toy 
balloon  so  that  it  just  falls  to  earth.  Kick  that 
toy  balloon  and  what  does  it  do.!*  Doesn't  it 
bounce  along,  and  after  a  few  feet  fall  easily 
down  again,  and  up  and  on  and  down  again ,? 

Picture  a  strong  wind  driving  that  toy  bal- 
loon along  the  street,  and  the  balloon,  as  it 
bumps  along,  meeting  an  obstacle:  Will  the 
balloon  smash  itself  against  the  obstacle,  or 
what  will  it  do?  What  that  balloon  does  is 
pretty  much  what  a  submarine  would  do  if, 
while  running  along  full  speed  under  water, 
she  suddenly  ran  into  shoal  water.  She  would 
go  bumping  along  on  the  bottom;  and,  meeting 
an  obstacle,  if  not  too  high,  she  would  be  more 
likely  to  bounce  over  it  than  to  smash  herself 
against  it. 

But  sometimes  they  do  run  into  things  and 
fetch  up .? 

That  is  right,  they  do.  Let  our  naval  men 
tell  of  the  old  C  plunger — the  first  class  of  sub 
in  our  navy — ^which  hit  an  excursion  steamer 
down  the  James  River  way  one  time.     She  was 


THE  SEA  BABIES  259 

a  wooden  steamer  about  150  feet  long,  and  the 
C's  bow  went  clear  through  the  steamer's  sides. 
The  steamer's  engineer  was  sitting  by  his  levers, 
reading  the  sporting  page  of  his  favorite  daily, 
when  he  heard  a  crash  and  found  himself  on  the 
engine-room  floor.  Looking  around,  he  saw  a 
wedge  of  steel  sticking  through  the  side  of  his 
ship.  He  did  not  know  what  it  was,  but  he 
could  see  right  away  it  didn't  have  a  friendly 
look;  so  he  hopscotched  across  the  engine-room 
floor  and  up  a  handy  ladder  to  the  deck,  taking 
his  assistant  along  in  his  wake.  After  rescuing 
the  passengers  it  took  three  tugboats  to  pry 
sub  and  steamer  apart. 

Our  C  boat  must  have  hit  her  a  pretty  good 
wallop,  for  as  they  fell  apart  the  steamer  sank. 
They  ran  the  little  old  C  up  to  the  navy-yard 
to  see  how  much  she  was  damaged.  Surely 
after  that  smash  she  must  be  shaken  up — her 
bow  torpedo-tubes  at  least  must  be  out  of  align- 
ment !  But  not  a  thing  wrong  anywhere;  they 
didn't  even  have  to  put  her  in  dry  dock.  Out 
and  about  her  business  she  went  next  morning. 

Later  another  of  the  same  class  came  nosing 
up  out  of  the  depths,  and  bumped  head  on  and 
into  a  breakwater  down  that  same  country — 


26o        THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

a  solid  stone  wall  of  a  breakwater.  What  did 
she  do  ?  She  bounced  off,  and,  after  a  look 
around,  also  went  on  about  her  business. 

In  the  morning  our  sub  upanchored  for  her 
run  across  the  open  bay.  On  the  conning-tower 
was  rigged  a  little  bridge  of  slim  brass  stanch- 
ions and  thin  wire-rope  rail,  with  the  canvas  as 
high  as  a  man's  chin  for  protection;  and  away 
she  went  in  a  wind  that  was  still  blowing  hard 
enough  to  drive  home-bound  Gloucester  fisher- 
men down  to  storm  trysails  and  sea  enough  to 
jump  an  out-bound  destroyer  of  a  thousand 
tons  under  easy  steam  to  her  lower  plates 
whenever  she  lifted  forward. 

There  was  not  a  soul  standing  around  on  the 
main  deck  of  the  destroyer  as  we  passed  her, 
nor  on  her  high  forward  turtle-deck,  which  was 
being  washed  clean;  and  surely  not  much  com- 
fort being  bounced  around  on  transoms  in  that 
destroyer  below,  nor  too  much  dryness  on  her 
flying  bridge.  And  yet  here  was  our  little  sub 
— full  speed  and  all — heading  straight  into  high- 
curhng  seas  and  making  fine  weather  of  it. 

Plunging  her  bow  under,  and  through  she'd 
go;  and  when  she  did  the  seas  would  go  swash- 


THE  SEA  BABIES  261 

ing  up  atop  of  her  make-believe  deck  and  come 
rolling  down  her  round-top  plates  and  squishing 
through  the  hundreds  of  round  holes  in  her 
deck  sides.  But  steady  ?  Up  on  her  little 
bridge  we  did  not  half  the  time  have  to  hold 
on  to  her  little  steel-rope  rail  lines  to  keep  our 
balance.  She  kept  on  going,  hooked-up  all  the 
way,  seas  and  wind  and  all  to  hinder  her,  and 
finished  her  five-hour  run  without  so  much 
as  wetting  our  coat  fronts  up  on  the  conning- 
tower  bridge.  A  great  little  sea  boat — a  sub- 
marine. 

Now  for  the  personnel  of  the  crew.  The  crew 
of  the  sub  described  were  not  sailors.  The  cap- 
tain was  an  old  seagoer — yes;  and  it  would  be 
a  safe  guess  that  the  diving-rudder  man  had  a 
seagoing  experience;  and  one  other  perhaps; 
but  the  fellows  who  stood  by  the  other  things 
below  came  straight  from  the  boat  works. 
They  had  helped,  most  of  them,  to  build  her: 
which  was  one  good  reason  for  having  them 
along  on  her  trial  trip. 

And  there  are  thousands  of  young  fellows 
working  around  garages  and  in  machine-shops 
and  electric-light  plants  ashore  who  are  the 
very  men  needed  for  submarines.     There  will 


262         THE  U-BOAT  HUNTERS 

always  have  to  be  a  sailor  or  two  in  a  sub- 
marine; or  there  should  be,  for  a  real  sailor  is 
always  a  handy  man  to  have  around — he  knows 
things  that  nobody  else  knows. 

And  so,  if  hanging  around  there  are  any 
young  fellows  with  a  taste  for  adventure  and 
a  trend  for  naval  warfare,  these  submarin^^ 
look  to  be  the  thing.  They  are  only  little  fel- 
lows now,  and,  as  they  stand  to-day,  limited  as 
to  range  and  power  of  offense,  but  stay  by  and 
grow  up  with  them,  and  by  and  by  be  with 
them  when  they  will  be  as  big  as  the  battleships 
and  of  a  radius  of  action  that  will  stretch  from 
here  to — well,  as  far  as  they  like;  drawing  their 
energy  from  the  sun  above  them,  or  the  sea- 
tides  about  them,  and  not  having  to  see  enemy 
ships  to  be  able  to  fight  them — equipped  with 
devices  not  now  invented  but  which  will  serve 
to  feel  those  other  ships  and,  feeling  them,  to 
plot  their  direction  and  distance ! 

Imagine  a  fleet  of  those  lads  battling  under 
water  some  day — allowing  no  surface  craft  to 
live — feeling  each  other  out  and  plotting  direc- 
tion and  distance  as  they  feel,  and  then  letting 
go  broadsides  of  torpedoes  ten  or  a  hundred 
times  as  powerful  as  anything  we  now  have; 


THE  SEA  BABIES  263 

and  at  the  same  time  the  air  full  of  war-planes 
battling  above  them. 

Infants,  sea  babies,  is  what  they  are  to-day. 
But  wait  till  they  grow  up ! 


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